Rav Eliyahu Tavger
Author of Kelil Tekhelet

“Murex” — Tekhelet or Kala Ilan?

A Response to the Article of Rav A. Aharon Ben-David

To the editors of Ohr Yisrael:

In recent years, the effort to restore Tekhelet to the mitzvah of tzitzis, and to identify the chilazon from which the desired dye was produced, has gained tremendous momentum. Many articles have been written on the subject, as well as entire pamphlets and sefarim. I cannot list all of them here, since there are many, but I will mention some of the more prominent ones: HaTekhelet by Rav Menachem Burstein, Lula’ot Tekhelet by Rav Shlomo Teitelbaum, Chotam Shel Zahav by Rav Binyamin Horowitz, and Levush HaAron by Rav Meir Hellman.

On the other side, sefarim and pamphlets criticizing and opposing this idea have also appeared. Among them I will mention Tekhelet Ve’Argaman by Rav Menachem Adler and the pamphlet Bein Tekhelet Le’Argaman by Rav Yisrael Toporowitz. Thus, most of the points requiring clarification and analysis have already been discussed in this extensive literature. For the most part, neither the author of the article under discussion nor I have very much genuinely new to add, because one can undoubtedly find discussions in these writings addressing the overwhelming majority of his questions and difficulties.

Nevertheless, one cannot simply leave the matter unanswered, so I have girded myself to respond to this article, particularly because it contains several comments directed at things I myself have written on this subject in the past.

A. The author criticizes the “methodology” which supposedly draws the target around an arrow that has already been shot, by explaining the Beraisa in Menachos concerning the Tekhelet chilazon in light of information obtained through “logical investigation”

With this claim, the author is, perhaps without realizing it, challenging the entire method of all our mefarshim throughout the generations, from the Tannaim until the latest Acharonim, who reconcile contradictions between texts and reason through ukimtos and various interpretations. The entire Talmud is full of this! Will the author say there too that they are “drawing the circle around an arrow that has already been shot”?

Practical knowledge plays an especially important and decisive role in understanding the words of Chazal. Practical knowledge guides and directs the thought process toward the original meanings of words and concepts, and eliminates interpretations that are merely products of the imagination and which the original author never intended at all.

There is no need to elaborate on the advisability of someone studying Hilchos Tereifos, for example, visiting a slaughterhouse and becoming familiar with animal anatomy. For such a person, the words and terminology appearing in these sugyos take on an entirely new meaning that would have been impossible without the practical knowledge he acquired.

It is not for nothing that the ironic expression “the holy korban” is common in the yeshiva world, referring to a talmid chacham who lacks practical knowledge and does not have the slightest real idea of the physical subject he is learning.

In this connection, one should mention the testimony of the Gaon Rav Avraham Simcha of Amchislav, nephew of Rav Chaim Volozhiner and one of the major transmitters of the Gra’s Torah, concerning the Gra’s view that the works of Josephus should be translated into Lashon HaKodesh. He writes, in the introduction to Wars of the Jews with the Romans, Vilna 5644:

“It is proper to make known to the multitudes of our people what is already known from trustworthy, G-d-fearing men: that our great master, the holy Gaon and Chassid, like one of the early generations, Moreinu VeRabbeinu Eliyahu of Vilna, desired that books of wisdom necessary for understanding the holy words of our Nevi’im and of our Rabbis, the Sages of the Talmud, and their difficult statements in many places, should be translated into our holy language. He urged the distinguished and famous scholar Rav Baruch Shklaver to translate whatever he was capable of. I likewise heard explicitly from my holy uncle, the Chassidic Gaon Rav Chaim of Volozhin, that our master said to his son Rav Avraham that he desired the translation of the sciences from other languages into Lashon HaKodesh, and the translation of Josephus for the Romans, through which we can understand the intention of our Rabbis in the Talmud and Midrashim regarding many matters concerning Eretz Yisrael, the Beis HaMikdash, and the practices of our holy leaders in former times, from the writings of the kohen and military commander at the end of the Second Temple period, Yosef ben Mattisyahu, the faithful historian of the Chashmonaim. His books have already been translated into many languages, and his name is great and highly regarded among the scholars of all nations, while only we have not yet merited to benefit from his light and words in our holy language. Surely the status of the priesthood should not be less than that of an innkeeper.”

It is true that there are Torah learners among us who feel that Chazal should be understood entirely from within themselves, and that using outside knowledge somehow diminishes the honor of Torah. But those who love and cherish truth, and recognize that the seal of HaKadosh Baruch Hu is truth, know that such an empty feeling has no place in avodas hakodesh.

B. The author complains about “two faulty assumptions”:

1. That we know all species of chilazon

2. That some species did not disappear since the time of Chazal

Every proof is built upon certain assumptions. Some are explicit, meaning that the person presenting the proof states them openly, and some are implicit and pass without comment. Anyone who seriously and honestly evaluates a proof must identify the assumptions underlying it and examine how reasonable they are.

Any identification based upon simanim that are not absolutely unique must assume the two points mentioned above. They ensure that we are dealing with the complete set of possible candidates, from which we can choose the item that best fits the simanim.

Both the Radzyner Rebbe and Rav Herzog, although they did not explicitly mention these assumptions or emphasize their necessity, necessarily relied upon them. If these assumptions are rejected, their proofs collapse as well.

There is therefore nothing revolutionary about putting these assumptions on the table. The only issue is whether they are reasonable, and this had not previously been examined. Based on our present knowledge of what happens to marine species, these assumptions are quite reasonable, and there is no real basis for doubting them.

Up to this point is the first stage of the proof. The next stage is selecting simanim that are definite and unambiguous. The simanim that I have found meet that standard are:

1. The chilazon is a living creature.
2. It is found in the Mediterranean Sea.
3. It has a shell.
4. A related type is found on land.
5. It can be used for dyeing.

The other simanim brought by those before me are not definite or unambiguous.

This method brings us directly to the conclusion that the Murex chilazon is the chilazon from which Tekhelet was produced. I discussed this at length in my article “On the Renewal of the Mitzvah of Tekhelet,” HaMaayan, Nissan 5757.

What is important to emphasize is that this proof joins other proofs that all lead to the same conclusion. Therefore, even someone who is concerned that perhaps some unknown species disappeared and that this lost species was actually the source of Tekhelet can still be convinced by the cumulative evidence.

C. The author assumes that Chazal gave us simanim so that we could know which chilazon they were speaking about

There is no basis for this assumption. It is an anachronistic interpretation that projects our present-day reality onto the distant past.

From our perspective, where Tekhelet has been lost and we are trying to rediscover it, it is natural to assume that when Chazal described the chilazon they intended to give us identifying simanim with which we could one day recover the lost species.

But in the days of Chazal, when everyone knew what Tekhelet was, there was no reason whatsoever to give simanim for a chilazon that was familiar to them.

What, then, will we say about Chazal’s statement in Pesachim 113b:

“Six things were said about a horse: it loves promiscuity, loves war, is arrogant, dislikes sleep, eats much and excretes little. Some say: it even seeks to kill its owner in battle.”

Were these descriptions also meant to allow future generations to identify a horse in case the horse should one day be lost?

Someone who assumes that Chazal intended to give us a roadmap for finding the missing chilazon will naturally give too much weight to simplistic and superficial readings of statements that were actually said for entirely different purposes.

Imagine that we had to reconstruct a snake or a carob tree from the descriptions in Chazal. Bechoros 8a says that the viper reproduces after seventy years, and correspondingly the carob tree takes seventy years from planting until its fruit is complete, and that the snake’s gestation is seven years.

Would we have identified the same snake and the same carob tree known to us today through mesorah? Surely we would have encountered many “problems” caused by our insistence on interpretations that Chazal themselves never intended.

D. “Its body resembles the sea”

The author assumes that the Beraisa means that the chilazon resembles the sea in color. But this is not stated there at all. It is entirely possible that the resemblance is in some other characteristic, such as its wave-like form, or the fact that it clings to the seabed and appears as part of it.

Incidentally, the word gufo in Chazal does not always mean the physical body or corpse. Sometimes it means the thing itself, as opposed to something else.

For example:

“Anyone who honors the Torah, gufo is honored by people” — Avos 4:6.

Or:

“A Kusi is trusted to say that a grave was plowed, because he is only testifying concerning the grave itself…”

And similarly:

“For use of the object itself… for use of its place” — Shabbos 123b.

Or:

“The Heichal itself — its interior — was twenty cubits.”

Or:

“Something whose own inherent prohibition caused the issur…”

And:

“Healing of the soul means his own body; healing of property means his animal.”

If this is the meaning here — and from the style of the Beraisa that is quite plausible — then one need not search for physical similarities to the sea at all, but rather behavioral characteristics.

The final explanation mentioned is found in the commentary attributed to the Raavad on Sefer Yetzirah.

Even if one insists that the comparison does refer to color, there is no problem. The greenish coating that covers Murex shells pulled from the sea indeed resembles the appearance of the sea near the shoreline.

E. “Its form resembles a fish”

The meaning of the word dag, “fish,” varies according to the speaker and his language. Some people use the term narrowly, while others use it broadly. Some picture only the familiar supermarket fish, with scales and a tail, while others call many different sea creatures “fish.”

The Gra already taught us in Eliyahu Rabbah, Keilim 10:1:

“Everything that is in the sea is from the category of fish, whatever form it may have.”

When we say that the chilazon is a fish or resembles a fish, we must first remember that we are discussing a chilazon — a mollusk with a shell, as is clear from Chazal, the Rishonim, and comparison with related Semitic languages. Therefore, we are necessarily using the word dag in its broader sense.

We should also note that the Beraisa does not say that the chilazon itself resembles a fish. It says that its beriyah resembles a fish.

Some explain that this means that it can live in water, unlike land snails. Others explain that beriyaso means its mode of reproduction — that it deposits eggs in the water like fish. See Tekhelet Ve’Atzei Shittim BaMishkan by Y. Felix.

Others explain that although its “body resembles the sea,” appearing like a rock fixed to the seabed and thus almost like an inanimate object, it nevertheless lives and moves — an explanation found in the commentary attributed to the Raavad on Sefer Yetzirah.

Someone who nevertheless wishes to interpret the comparison to a fish physically can see in the outline of the Murex shell the familiar “fish-like” form, as discussed in Lula’ot Tekhelet.

F. “It comes up once in seventy years”

This phrase can be understood in several ways:

It comes up from the sea onto land by itself; it is washed ashore by waves; it rises from the seabed toward the surface; or it “comes up” in fishermen’s nets.

The second possibility applies to any marine snail, including the Murex.

This phrase therefore does not necessarily indicate that the chilazon itself is rare, as the author argues.

G. Its value comes from its rarity

This depends upon the textual version of the Beraisa.

According to the text before us:

“It comes up once in seventy years, and with its blood they dye Tekhelet; therefore its damim are expensive.”

The high price of the chilazon is connected to the fact that its blood is used to dye Tekhelet, which is a luxury material. Its rarity is not necessarily the reason for its price.

Only according to the girsa lefichach dameha yekarim — “therefore its value is expensive,” referring to Tekhelet — as found in Rav Shmuel ben Chofni Gaon’s Sefer Dinei Mitzvas HaTzitzis, would it mean that Tekhelet is expensive because the chilazon comes up only once in seventy years.

H. “Its blood is black like ink”

This characteristic is not found in Chazal, but only in the Rambam’s Hilchos Tzitzis, and various explanations have been proposed for its source.

The Radzyner Rebbe suggested that the Rambam found the chilazon and was recording an additional siman based on personal experience, one not mentioned in the Gemara.

Much ink has been spilled over the question whether the Rambam could indeed have known the chilazon, something apparently contradicted by his Peirush HaMishnayos to Menachos.

Statements of his son Rav Avraham, in HaMaspik LeOvdei Hashem, Hilchos Tzitzis, discovered only in recent times, appear to settle the matter conclusively: neither he, and apparently not his father, had practical familiarity with the chilazon in question.

Rav Herzog, on the other hand, suggested that the Rambam’s source was a faulty Arabic translation of Aristotle’s description of the purpura snail. The dark shade described by Aristotle as the color of the snail’s blood supposedly became, through translation from Greek into Arabic, a word meaning “ink.”

In my view, there is no need to go so far and search for the Rambam’s source in Arabic translations of Aristotle.

It seems that his words are based on the Beraisa itself: “Its body resembles the sea.” In the Rambam’s view, this statement explains how a blue color can be produced from the chilazon’s blood: “Its appearance resembles Tekhelet,” because “its blood is black like ink,” meaning extremely dark blue. As is known, in the Rambam’s language shachor can include blue.

The dark blood is so strongly colored that it reflects through and gives the chilazon a color resembling that of the sea.

Since, however, the phrase “its body resembles the sea” has other possible explanations, as discussed above, we have no obligation to require this particular condition, which is mentioned only by the Rambam.

There are also many respected scholars who have regarded the concentrated dark substance extracted from the Murex as fully consistent with the Rambam’s description. Rav Amram Hoffman says this in his haskamah to Lula’ot Tekhelet.

I. “He crushes it by hand and not with a hammer”

The reality is not as the author describes it.

It is true that the thick shell must first be broken with a hammer in order to expose the body of the chilazon. However, the “blood” does not simply flow out on its own. One must “press it with his hands until its blood comes out,” exactly as Rashi says.

The word petzi’ah, used in connection with removing the chilazon’s blood, is itself further evidence that the chilazon has a hard shell and must be cracked open, just as nuts are mefatz’im in the language of Chazal.

J. “Perhaps it normally thrashes about”

The author himself acknowledges that there are other ways to explain why removing the chilazon from the water does not itself constitute the Melachah of Netilas Neshamah on Shabbos. If so, there is no necessity to conclude that the chilazon normally thrashes around.

All the more so considering that Tosafos themselves presented the suggestion only with the word shema — “perhaps.”

K. There is no issue of trapping because it remains in place

According to Rabbeinu Yerucham, Netiv 12, there is an issur of tzad on Shabbos involving worms and snails even though they are slow-moving creatures. Therefore, the Gemara’s discussion of trapping the chilazon on Shabbos poses no contradiction whatsoever to our identification.

Incidentally, throughout his article the author repeatedly falls into a logical error by demanding that the identification of the chilazon fit every existing interpretation, even when those interpretations contradict one another and are mutually exclusive.

Furthermore, even according to those who hold that trapping does not apply to slow animals, that could refer to an individual creature sitting in front of you. But when one must spread nets and fishing equipment in the depths of the sea in order to catch them, even those opinions would presumably agree that this constitutes trapping.

L. It does not fit Rav Yochanan’s statement: “When he wounds it, it dies”

The Murex loses some of its dye content once it dies. Therefore, dyers try to wound living, fresh specimens. Ancient writers already noted this.

Nevertheless, one can certainly still dye with Murex specimens that have recently died, up to a certain stage. This fits perfectly with Rav Yochanan’s statement in Shabbos 75a, befotze’o meis — “when he wounds it, it dies” — as well as the Gemara’s statement:

“The longer it remains alive, the better for him, so that its dye should be clear.”

The girsa of Rabbeinu Chananel, d’leitzlach tziv’ei, is even more suitable, but the standard girsa d’leitzil tziv’ei also works, since once the chilazon dies it can release substances that muddy or spoil the dye.

The statements quoted by the author in footnote 20, claiming that “once he begins opening it he prefers that it die immediately,” simply do not match reality.

M. Kala Ilan does not come out with tzafon, whereas Tekhelet does

The Gemara in Bava Kama 93b says that Kala Ilan — indigo, as explained by the Geonim and the Aruch, and used to counterfeit Tekhelet — does not come out through tzafon, meaning soap.

There is no basis whatsoever to infer from this Gemara that Tekhelet does come out with soap.

On the contrary, the Maharshal writes in Yam Shel Shlomo there:

“If it was dyed with Kala Ilan, which never comes out, then certainly Tekhelet does not.”

Likewise, the Tosafos in Zevachim 95a, vehu ba’i shiv’ah samemanim, upon whom the author relies, say that the Me’il may not be washed with soap because soap removes the dye. But there is no proof that they meant the Tekhelet dye specifically. The Me’il contained several colors — Tekhelet, and along its lower edge Argaman and Tola’as Shani. We do not know which color they had in mind.

Furthermore, their words are part of a theoretical shakla vetarya — and Rashi there disagrees — rather than the product of firsthand knowledge.

The claim that Tekhelet is removed by soap also encounters difficulties from other Gemaras, as discussed in the Radzyner Rebbe’s Ptil Tekhelet, Mishor edition p. 82.

N. The Ramban in Parashas Tetzaveh

The Ramban writes in Shemos 28:2:

“And Tekhelet — even today no man would dare wear it except a king of the nations.”

This cannot be referring merely to the color, as the author claims, because the glory of a non-Jewish king did not lie in wearing a particular color. His distinction was in wearing clothing made of a precious material, whose use was restricted to royalty. It did not necessarily have one fixed shade.

The Ramban cites this fact as evidence that Tekhelet is a material used for royal garments, and that for this reason the Torah commanded its use in the Bigdei Kehunah.

If the point were only the color, there would be no proof at all.

There is therefore also no need for the Ramban to have personally seen the king. It is enough that it was generally known that this material was used for royal clothing.

These words of the Ramban are reliable testimony that there was a tradition identifying Tekhelet with purpura.

O. Purpura means Argaman, not Tekhelet

Purpura in Latin, or porphyra in Greek, is the name of the Murex snail. The dye produced from it, in all its various shades, was likewise broadly called purpura.

When people wished to identify a specific shade, they added an adjective. Thus, we find terms such as purpura blatta for a reddish shade, and purpura hyacinthina for a bluish shade.

In Greek translations of the Torah, the Greek word porphyra was consistently used to translate Argaman, while hyakinthos was used for Tekhelet, aside from one exception in Bamidbar 4:7, where beged Tekhelet was translated holoporphyron.

Anyone who imagines that purpura meant Argaman only and not Tekhelet must ask himself a simple question: Why would the Greeks and Romans have completely avoided using Tekhelet? The Murex was the only marine animal dye source used in antiquity. Was blue somehow not attractive enough for them and liked only by Jews?

A royal garment itself was also called purpura, because it was normally dyed with Murex-derived dye.

In the language of Chazal, purpura usually refers to the royal garment. But in the Yerushalmi quoted by the Raavyah, Berachos 25:

“Between Tekhelet and green, between purperin and periperin,”

these words clearly refer to different colors that can be distinguished toward the end of the night.

More recently, Rav Shlomo Teitelbaum and Rav Yehoshua Engelkovitz found, on the basis of a manuscript of the Raavyah, that the correct Yerushalmi reading is:

“Between purperin and prasinon.”

Prasinon is Greek for green.

In other words, the Yerushalmi is simply translating the Mishnah into Greek. If so, we have an explicit and unambiguous statement from Chazal identifying Tekhelet as purpura.

P. Torah scholars never treated archaeologists as authoritative, not because physical findings cannot serve as evidence, but because we do not trust them that the claimed findings are real

It is not clear to me where this rule comes from or what its source is.

On the contrary, one could bring proof that archaeological findings may be relied upon from the Gemara in Bava Basra 74a, which sought to resolve the machlokes between Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai regarding the chulyos of tzitzis from the tzitzis that Rabbah bar bar Chanah claimed to have found on the dead of the Dor HaMidbar.

Likewise, the Rambam relied upon coins from the Second Temple era in order to establish that the ancient Hebrew script was used for mundane purposes. In a teshuvah he writes:

“Therefore, you will always find mundane words engraved upon the holy shekalim in Hebrew script, and you will not find even one letter of Ashuri script on any surviving Jewish artifact, neither engraved on a coin nor engraved in stone; all of it is in Hebrew script.”

Similarly, the Mordechai in Hilchos Tefillin writes:

“They sent a letter from Eretz Yisrael that a structure over the grave of Yechezkel collapsed, and they found there old tefillin arranged according to Rashi and the Rambam.”

Q. I have not found archaeological evidence proving that they produced a pure blue dye from it, only red through violet tending toward blue

Besides the find of the horse covering from the Altai Mountains mentioned by the author in his footnote — containing blue decorations which Russian researchers determined had been dyed with Murex — there are two such finds from Eretz Yisrael.

One is a textile from Masada examined by Z. Koren, and the other is a textile from Wadi Murabba’at studied by N. Sukenik. See HaArgaman by Zohar Amar, pp. 69–70.

Obviously, these finds are not themselves direct proof that Murex is the source of Tekhelet. Their great importance is that they refute the claim sometimes made that the ancients did not know how to produce a pure blue color from the Murex.

If we add the Gemara in Menachos 43a:

“Rav Achai said to them: If so, this is neither Tekhelet nor Kala Ilan,”

meaning that wool dyed a blue color came either from Tekhelet or from plant-derived Kala Ilan, and not from some third source, we have another piece of evidence that Murex — from which blue shades were demonstrably produced in antiquity — is in fact the Tekhelet chilazon.

The Rambam’s statement in Hilchos Tzitzis 2:1:

“Or with other darkening substances — it is invalid for tzitzis,”

does not prove that there was in Chazal’s time some third substance capable of producing ke’ein harakia. The phrase simply includes other materials that might be discovered or used at some future time.

Istis and shachor, mentioned by the Rambam, are two different plants — woad and indigo — both of which produce essentially the same blue dye material. In the Rambam’s terminology, blue may be called shachor, as we see in Hilchos Tzitzis and in the Moreh Nevuchim 1:73.

R. A mesorah against the Murex

The author quotes Rav Herzog as saying that the famous traveler R. Binyamin of Tudela mentions a purpura industry on the coast of Tyre still operating in his time, and notes that Jews played a major role in it.

However, I already demonstrated in my article “When Did Tekhelet Cease in Israel?” that this statement is based upon a corrupted text of Masa’os Rabbi Binyamin MiTudela. According to the correct version, the passage is speaking about the cultivation of sugar cane.

Likewise, the continued use of purpura among the Byzantine emperors in Constantinople did not enable Jews to preserve the practical mesorah of dyeing, as the author expects. Knowledge of the identification between Tekhelet and purpura could remain theoretical while the actual craft was forgotten.

The claim that one could preserve, generation after generation, detailed knowledge of the chilazon and the dyeing technique while waiting for the prohibition on its use to disappear is simply unrealistic.

A craft that is complicated and technically demanding cannot easily be preserved by people who have been prevented from practicing it for generations.

S. The color of Tekhelet is unknown

Colors are defined by three variables: hue, saturation, and brightness.

The author assumes that Tekhelet had one very specific level of brightness, and that anything lighter or darker than that would no longer be called Tekhelet.

Aside from the strangeness of this assumption — since normally both light and dark versions of the same hue retain the same color name, such as light red and dark red — Rav Yochanan ben Dahavai says:

“Even its second appearance is kosher,”

meaning a weaker shade produced by a second dyeing.

This demonstrates clearly that different levels of intensity or brightness do not change the basic status of the color. Even the Chachamim who disagree with him do not do so because they hold that the weaker shade is not Tekhelet, but for a different reason.

Moreover, Tekhelet fundamentally does not denote a color or shade in the modern sense. It is the name of a product — wool dyed with the blood of the chilazon, in its various shades resembling the color of the sky.

Nevertheless, someone who insists upon treating Tekhelet as the name of one precise shade may consult the ancient depiction of a Kohen Gadol wearing the Bigdei Kehunah, including the me’il kelil Tekhelet, preserved on the walls of the Dura-Europos synagogue from the Amoraic period — a time when Tekhelet was still in use and people knew what it looked like.

T. Today there are two schools — Murex and cuttlefish — so who can decide between them?

While the author subjected the Murex identification to extremely strict and demanding scrutiny, he treats the cuttlefish proposal with an unexplained and remarkable degree of leniency.

The “simanim” he demands from the Murex suddenly disappear when it comes to the cuttlefish.

He is not bothered that the cuttlefish’s body is whitish with brown stripes rather than blue, that its form does not resemble a fish, that it does not come up once in seventy years, that it is neither rare nor especially expensive.

In fact, the cuttlefish is not even a chilazon in the normal sense of a shelled mollusk. Most importantly, the black substance that it emits when threatened is not usable as a textile dye.

Rav Herzog was already surprised in his time to discover that the blue dye prepared from the cuttlefish was actually manufactured artificially through chemicals added to its secretion.

In truth, there is no reason whatsoever to consider the cuttlefish a candidate for the Tekhelet chilazon, or even to have entertained the idea in the first place, were it not for its German name, Tintenfisch — “ink-fish” — which perhaps reminded German Hebraists of the Rambam’s description in Hilchos Tzitzis 2:2:

“It is a fish whose appearance resembles the appearance of Tekhelet, and its blood is black like ink.”

This led certain German Hebraists, such as Michaelis in his Hebrew lexicon, to suggest the identification.

I have no doubt whatsoever that if that tzaddik and gaon, the Radzyner Rebbe zt”l, who arose in his generation to search for the Tekhelet chilazon, were alive today, he would retract his cuttlefish proposal and conclude that the Murex is the true Tekhelet chilazon.

The Radzyner Rebbe believed that the cuttlefish had served in antiquity as the source of an expensive dye, which he considered the decisive siman in identifying the Tekhelet chilazon. He writes in Maamar Ptil Tekhelet, p. 6:

“Likewise, among the ancient Greeks and Romans, wool dyed Tekhelet was considered extremely valuable, and was used as a sign of exalted office. According to the degree of a ruler’s greatness, they wore belts, gloves, and sashes dyed in Tekhelet, each person according to his rank.”

Based upon what is known today, beyond any reasonable doubt, this description fits the Murex perfectly — the one source that actually served this royal and luxury-dye function in the ancient world.