On the Renewal of the Mitzvah of Tekhelet

Rav Eliyahu Tavger

Introduction[1]

After reading Rav Yaakov Epstein’s article on Tekhelet, published in the Teves 5757 issue, it became clear to me that my position, which he addresses in his article, was not properly understood. I therefore thought it appropriate to explain the matter again, briefly.

The various approaches to identifying the original Tekhelet can be divided into three categories:

A. Identifying the chilazon.
B. Identifying the dye industry.
C. Linguistic identification.

A. Identifying the Chilazon

Whenever something is identified based on simanim, several conditions must be met:

A. The group of possible candidates must be complete.
B. All the candidates must be examined against the identifying simanim, and the ones that fit must then be selected.

For example, if we are trying to identify a particular bachur from a certain institution based on a description we were given — and we do not know that the description is unique to him — we first have to make sure that all the bachurim are before us. We then compare each one to the description. Only after we find that just one of them matches can we determine with certainty that he is the bachur we were looking for.

Similarly, the description itself has to be clear-cut and not subject to change. For example, “thin” or “fat” are not valid simanim, because they are relative terms and can change. It should be noted that these rules apply to anyone attempting an identification based on simanim whose exclusivity has not been established, whether or not he realizes it.

This was the approach taken by the Radzyner Rebbe zt”l, an approach which led him to identify the cuttlefish as the chilazon of Tekhelet.

However, his approach was lacking, because not all of the above conditions were fulfilled. He did not have before him a complete list of the creatures of the Mediterranean Sea — and in those days such a list was not even obtainable — and therefore he could not conduct a review of all possible candidates.

Almost all of the eleven simanim that the Rebbe derived from the sources are also found in other creatures and are not unique to the cuttlefish. In addition, many of them are themselves not unambiguous.

For example, his sixth siman was that “the chilazon has strings resembling bent pegs.” This is based on the Mishnah in Keilim (12:1), “A chain with a chilazon tied to its end is tamei.” But this is not an unambiguous proof, because we do not know precisely why the object attached to the chain was called a chilazon, and various explanations have been given. And even if we accept that it refers to tentacles or strings, these are also found in other creatures, as noted above.

Rav Epstein did not take note of the fact that the Radzyner Rebbe’s approach was itself a process of elimination. Rav Herzog zt”l also followed such an approach, as we will see below, and in fact this is necessarily the approach of anyone who wants to identify the chilazon from its simanim, whether he explicitly says so or is even conscious of it.

In my article, I merely defined the principles of this approach and attempted to improve the identification process: first, by checking whether we now possess a complete list of the creatures that inhabited the Mediterranean in the time of Chazal; and second, by attempting to rely only on simanim that are certain and unambiguous.

This improved method leads us to identify the Murex as the chilazon of Tekhelet.

The criteria I used were:

A. The chilazon is a living creature.
B. It is found in the Mediterranean Sea.
C. It has a shell or casing.
D. A related type is found on land.
E. It can be used for dyeing.

Rav Epstein mistakenly attributed another siman to me — that “it is not a mountain chilazon” — and raised a difficulty from Rashi (Megillah 6a and elsewhere). Besides this, it is not correct to challenge an approach from one explanation of a sugya when another explanation is known — namely that of the Yad Ramah to Sanhedrin 91a — which fits this criterion. This observation applies to several places in Rav Epstein’s article.

He also omitted the last criterion, which is the most important of all.

The third and fourth criteria express what is agreed upon by linguists: the word chilazon means a snail with a spiral shell. This was also clear to the Rishonim, who speak about a chilazon-shape, meaning a spiral form (Or Hashem of Rav Chasdai Crescas 1:13). This is also the meaning of the word chilazon in Arabic to this day.

Rav Epstein’s challenge to this accepted identification is difficult to understand. The ring called a chilazon, as illustrated in manuscripts of the Aruch, twists in a spiral and in that respect certainly resembles the shell of a snail.

The assumption that today we possess a complete list of the creatures that lived in the Mediterranean Sea in the time of Chazal seems to me extremely reasonable, and I do not understand what basis there is to question it.

B. Identifying the Dye Industry

With this method of identification, we bypass the entire problem of identifying the chilazon, together with all the complications involved, and go directly to identifying the ancient Tekhelet industry.

There is only one assumption underlying this method: Tekhelet was one of the luxury commodities of the ancient world and was very well known. This is clear from the sources of Chazal.

(See Menachos 43b, “The punishment for white is greater…”; the aggados concerning Korach in Sanhedrin 110a and Midrash Mishlei, chapter 11; Sifrei, VeZos HaBerachah §354; Aruch, entry Tekhelet; Rashi to Shabbos 26a, s.v. VeLiyogvim; and Ramban to Shemos 28:2.)

If so, it is inconceivable that such an industry would not be mentioned in the extensive literature of the ancient world, which describes the life and industries of that period in considerable detail.

And yet those sources describe only one dye industry that used a marine creature: the industry associated with the Murex. Likewise, the archaeological finds contain remains of this industry and no comparable remains of another such industry.

The conclusion from all this is that the Murex was the source of Tekhelet.

Rav Yitzchak Isaac Herzog zt”l struggled between these two methods of identification because they appeared to him to contradict one another. The first approach — identifying the chilazon itself — led him to the Janthina, while the second approach — identifying the dye industry — led him to the Murex.

Once we have shown that, on the contrary, the two approaches actually agree with one another, there is no longer any reason for this uncertainty.

The Radzyner Rebbe was likewise convinced that Tekhelet had been used by the Roman emperors and that it was described in their literature, as is clear to anyone who studies his sefarim. He simply believed that the cuttlefish was the source of that celebrated dye.

Now that it has been established beyond doubt that the cuttlefish was not used by them at all, while the Murex was the source of the royal dye industry, it is reasonable to assume that had the Radzyner Rebbe lived in our generation, he would have accepted the Murex wholeheartedly.

C. Linguistic Identification

The Raavyah, in his commentary to Maseches Berachos, quotes a Yerushalmi that identifies Tekhelet with porphyra.

Porphyra is a Greek word that passed into other languages as well. (It seems to me that the first person to bring this Raavyah in the modern Tekhelet discussion was Rav Betzalel Naor, and that it had not previously been cited.)

The word porphyra has several meanings:

A. The name of the Murex snail.
B. The dyes, in various shades, produced from this snail.
C. A term for royal clothing, as found in the Midrashim, because royal garments were commonly dyed with colors produced from the porphyra snail.

Now that we have merited the preservation of this important passage from the Yerushalmi, we have an additional proof, joining the previous proofs, for identifying the Murex as the source of Tekhelet.

Rav Epstein questions this proof because this passage is not found in our text of the Yerushalmi, and because we do not find others quoting it. But I do not understand the problem.

There are dozens of passages quoted by the Raavyah and other Rishonim that are not found in our Yerushalmi. Why should something that was good enough for the great Rishon, the Raavyah — who quoted these passages and relied upon them — not be good enough for us?

I also do not understand why Rav Epstein argues that every time Tekhelet is mentioned it should have been identified as porphyra. Did Chazal need to translate the Hebrew word Tekhelet, which everyone understood, into the Greek word porphyra?

Only in this particular passage quoted by the Raavyah, where it was necessary to make a fine distinction between two shades, were Tekhelet and karasi translated into Greek terms describing those two closely related colors with precision.

His claim that porphyra specifically means argaman does not escape the very questions that he himself raises, and I do not understand why that interpretation should be preferred.

Continuing from the words of the Raavyah, we should also cite Rav Binyamin Mussafia, one of the Spanish exiles, who writes in his Mussaf HeAruch to the Aruch, under the entry porphyra:

“Porphyra — in Greek and Roman, it means a garment of Tekhelet.”

True, he does not bring proofs for this statement, as Rav Epstein demands. But matters of this kind do not require proofs. We are dealing with an accepted and established identification that existed in their time, just as we do not question the hundreds and thousands of identifications that were accepted by the Rishonim and were transmitted through them to us.

The great posek, the Chavos Yair, likewise writes with certainty in his Mekor Chaim (Orach Chaim, vol. I, p. 99) that Tekhelet is porphyra.

The bottom line is that we do not abandon something that was straightforward to the Rishonim because of exaggerated and unsupported doubts, thereby turning the fulfillment of an entire mitzvah into some sort of optional middas chassidus.