String Ratios Discussed:
Bottom Line
This 2025 exchange presents a very different way of framing doubtful Techeiles: you do not need to claim certainty in order for wearing Murex-dyed strings to make sense.
Micha Berger deliberately says “Murex-dyed strings” rather than simply calling them Techeiles. His point is that if the identification is correct, one may actually be fulfilling the mitzvah; if it is not, the blue string still serves as a direct reminder of Techeiles. By using only the Techeiles-designated string and leaving the white strings white, he also avoids presenting ordinary blue strings as definite Techeiles.
He contrasts that with the more indirect historical memorial of blue or black stripes on the tallis. Those stripes may commemorate Techeiles, but they can never themselves fulfill the mitzvah.
Bottom line: Berger reframes the choice from “either we know this is Techeiles or we should not wear it” to “a plausible Murex candidate can be worn honestly as a safek.” If it is genuine, one may be fulfilling the Torah obligation; if not, one still has a concrete reminder of the lost mitzvah — without falsely claiming certainty.
Main Text
Message: 5
From: Joel Rich
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2025 05:46:23 +0200
Subject: [Avodah] tcheilet reminders?
If you were given a white tallit and asked to add an element from scratch to remind you of tcheilet, what would you do and why?
Bsorot Tovot
Joel Rich
Message: 6
From: Micha Berger
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2025 16:58:38 +0200
Subject: Re: [Avodah] tcheilet reminders?
On Wed, Jan 15, 2025 at 05:46:23AM +0200, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
If you were given a white tallit and asked to add an element from scratch to remind you of tcheilet, what would you do and why?
I would re-tie with murex dyed strings.
I said it like that, rather than saying “with tekheiles” because I am not insisting that we identified tekheiles correctly for this move to make sense.
Say you tie 1 string out of 8 (1/2 out of 4), Rambam style. None of your white strings are colored blue, for sure. Just an instead-of-tekheiles string.
You don’t claim it’s definitely tekheiles if you don’t think it is, and you don’t violate the gemara about misrepsenting kaleh ilan.
You might be fulfilling the mitzvah. And if not, you are at least remembering tekheiles.
Or you could be talking about what we actually did:
When we continued wearing tellisos even after the stollus went out of style, the stripes were not longer just because that’s how fancier stollae were made. And after centuries, later than Rembrandt!, different communities settled on blue in memory of tekheiles or black in mourning for it.
Tir’u baTov!
-Micha
PS: And those blue in memory of tekheiles stripes were on the tallis that the Zionist flag committee started with. The Magen David was to keep the flag, when hanging without a breeze, from looking like a white flag of surrender. The tallis design was too plain.
