Blue in Judaism

''Tekhelet'' ( he, תְּכֵלֶת ''təḵēleṯ''; alternate spellings include ''tekheleth'', ''t'chelet'', ''techelet'' and ''techeiles'') is a "blue-violet", "blue", or "turquoise" dye highly prized by ancient Mediterranean civilizations. In the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition, it was used in the clothing of the High Priest, the tapestries in the Tabernacle, and the ''tzitzit'' (fringes) affixed to the corners of one's four-cornered garments, including the ''tallit''. Tekhelet is most notably mentioned in the third paragraph of the Shema, quoting .

Neither the source nor method of production of ''tekhelet'' is specified in the Bible. According to later rabbinic sources, it was produced exclusively from a marine creature known as the ''Ḥillazon''.Talmudbr>Menachot 44a
Tosefta Menachotbr>9:6
/ref> Knowledge of how to produce ''tekhelet'' was lost in medieval times, and since then ''tzitzit'' did not include ''tekhelet''. However, in modern times, many Jews believe that experts have identified the ''Ḥillazon'' and rediscovered the ''tekhelet'' manufacture process, and now wear ''tzitzit'' which include the resulting blue dye. The creature most commonly thought to have produced authentic ''tekhelet'' is the snail Hexaplex trunculus (historically known as ''Murex trunculus'').

A garment with ''tzitzit'' has four tassels, each containing four strings. There are three opinions in rabbinic literature as to how many of the four strings should be dyed with ''tekhelet'': two strings; one string; or one-half string.

Biblical references

Of the 49 or 48 uses in the Masoretic Text, one refers to fringes on cornered garments of the whole nation of Israel (), 42 refer to the priesthood or temple clothes and garments. The remaining 6 in Esther, Jeremiah and Ezekiel are secular uses; such as when Mordechai puts on "blue and white" "royal clothing" in Esther. The color could be used in combination with other colors such as 2 Chronicles where the veil of Solomon's Temple is made of blue-violet (''Tekhelet''), purple (Hebrew: אַרְגָּמָן ''Argaman'') and scarlet (Biblical Hebrew: שָׁנִי (''Shani'') or כַּרְמִיל ''karmiyl''). states that ''tekhelet''-cloth could be obtained from "isles of Elishah" (likely Cyprus). All Biblical mentions of ''tekhelet'' (both secular and priestly) attribute its usage to some kind of elite. This implies that ''tekhelet'' was difficult to obtain and expensive, an impression further corroborated by the later rabbinic writings.

History

The manufacture of ''tekhelet'' appears to date back to at least 1750 BCE in Crete. In the Amarna letters (14th century BCE) ''tekhelet'' garments are listed as a precious good used for a royal dowry.

At some point following the Roman destruction of the Second Temple, the identity of the source of the dye was lost, and since then Jews have only worn ''tzitzit'' without ''tekhelet''. The Talmud mentions use of ''tekhelet'' in the period of Rav Ahai (5th-6th century); however the Tanhuma (8th century) laments that ''tekhelet'' has been lost.

This loss appears to have been caused by a progression of historical events. Already in the first century, Caesar and Augustus restricted the use of the Murex dye to the governing class. Nero made laws that stated no one was allowed to wear purple because it was the color of royalty, and specifically he forbade goods dyed with Purpura (the name used for the Murex trunculus) under penalty of death. The idea that it was illegal to wear ''tekhelet'' is corroborated by a Talmudic story, in which rabbis caught smuggling ''tekhelet'' were liable to the death penalty. In the sixth century, Justinian put the ''tekhelet'' and argaman industries under a royal monopoly, causing independent dyers to cease their work and find other employment. The apparent final straw was the Muslim conquest of 639, in which the royal Byzantine dying industry was destroyed. Developments in the Jewish community may also have played a role, such as the proliferation of counterfeit (indigo) threads which made the procurement of genuine ''tekhelet'' difficult, and the persecution of Byzantine Jews which interfered with their export of ''tekhelet'' to Babylonia. Some have argued that the use of ''tekhelet'' persisted (at least in certain locations) for several centuries beyond the Muslim conquest, based on texts from the geonim and early rishonim which discuss the commandment in practical terms.

The reason why royalty used the Murex dye as opposed to indigo which looked the same was because indigo faded. However once they figured out how to make indigo endure they stopped using the Murex trunculus because indigo was much cheaper. That time is when people stopped using the Murex trunculus for its Dye entirely.

Identifying the color of ''tekhelet''

Despite the general agreement of the most of the modern English translations of the phrase, the term ''tekhelet'' itself presents several basic problems.

First, it remains unclear to what extent the word in biblical times denoted a color or a source material, though it appears that at least in contemporary Mesopotamian sources, the cognate word ''takiltu'' referred to a color and not a material or dying process.

Second, although with time ''tekhelet'' came to denote the color blue, the exact hue in antiquity is not definitively known. The task is made harder by the tendency of ancient writers to identify colors not so much by their hue, as by other factors such as luminosity, saturation and texture. Modern scholars believe that ''tekhelet'' probably referred to blue-purple and blue colors. The color of ''tekhelet'' was likely to have varied in practice, as ancient dyers were generally unable to reproduce exact colors from one batch of dye to another.

Sources

In the early classical sources (Septuagint, Aquila, Symmachus, Vulgate, Philo, and Josephus), ''tekhelet'' was translated into Greek as ''hyakinthos'' (, "hyacinth") or the Latin equivalent.Efraim Vaynman
Tekhelet: Color Perception or Apprehension?
/ref> The color of the hyacinth flower ranges from violet blue to a bluish purple (though the hyacinth species dominant in the eastern Mediterranean - Hyacinthus orientalis - is violet), and the word ''hyakinthos'' was used to describe both blue and purple colors.

Early rabbinic sources provide indications as to the nature of the color. Some sources describe ''tekhelet'' as visually indistinguishable from indigo (''kala ilan'').Bava Metzia 61a-b; Menachot 40a-b This description is also somewhat ambiguous, as different varieties of indigo have colors ranging between blue and purple, but generally the color of dyed indigo in the ancient world was blue.Baruch Sterman
Tekhelet Perception
/ref>

Other rabbinic sources describe ''tekhelet'' as similar to the sea or sky. An oft-repeated explanation for the Torah's choice of ''tekhelet'' went as follows: "Why is ''tekhelet'' different from all other colors? Because ''tekhelet'' is similar n appearanceto the sea, and the sea is similar to the sky, and the sky is similar to lapis lazuli, and lapis lazuli is similar to the Throne of Glory." (In a few versions of this source, "plants" (''asavim'') are included in this chain of similarity even though plants are not blue; though it has been suggested that these sources refer to bluish plants like hyacinth.) Jose ben Jose was another early author who described ''tekhelet'' as resembling the sky.

In still other sources the color of ''tekhelet'' is compared to the night sky. Similarly, Rashi quotes Moshe ha-Darshan who describes it as "the color of the sky as it darkens toward evening" - a deep blue or dark violet.

Rashi himself describes the color as "green, and close to the color of leeks"; commenting on a Talmudic passage according to which the morning Shema may be recited once it is light enough to distinguish between ''tekhelet'' and leeks.

In Akkadian, the cognate word ''takiltu'' is written using the word sign also used for lapis lazuli, suggesting they have similar colors.Shiyanthi Thavapalan,
Purple Fabrics and Garments in Akkadian Documents
, ''Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History'', 2018, Lapis lazuli can vary between blue and purple-blue, and according to some sources the preferred shade of lapis lazuli in the Near East was purple-blue. However, Mesopotamian mythology asserted that visible sky is a layer of lapis lazuli stone underlying Heaven, suggesting a sky-blue color for the stone.

The Sifrei says that counterfeit ''tekhelet'' was made from both " eddye and indigo", indicating that the overall color was purple. However, other sources list just "indigo" as the counterfeit, suggesting either that in their opinion the color was purely blue, or that indigo was the main counterfeit ingredient and the other ingredients not significant enough to mention.

The Sippar Dye Text (7th century BCE), as well as the Leyden and Stockholm papyri (3rd century) provide recipes for counterfeit ''takiltu'' dye that include a mixture of red and blue colors, for an overall purple color.

A pure blue color can only be produced from Hexaplex dye through a debromination process. Only in the 1980s did modern scientists learn how to create blue Hexaplex dye using this process, leading some experts to declare that ancient dyers would not have been able to create blue ''tekhelet'' (and therefore, that an undebrominated purple color is more likely). However, in recent years archaeologists have recovered several fabrics dyed blue with Hexaplex dye 1800 or more years ago, demonstrating that ancient dyers could and did make blue dye from Hexaplex. Such fabrics have been found at Wadi Murabba'at (2nd century), Masada (1st century BCE), Qatna (14th century BCE), and arguablyEfraim Vaynman
A Testament to the True Tekhelet
/ref> Pazyryk valley (5th-4th century BCE).

Identifying the ''ḥillazon''

While the Bible does not identify the source of ''tekhelet'', rabbinic halakha specified that it could only be made from a sea creature known as the ''ḥillazon''.

Rabbinic sources describe various qualities of this creature. It was found on the coast between Tyre and Haifa. "Its body is similar to the sea, and its form (ברייתו) is similar to a fish, and it comes up rom the seaonce every 70 years, and with its blood ''tekhelet'' is dyed, therefore it is expensive." Dye was extracted from the ''Ḥillazon'' by cracking it open, suggesting that it has a hard external shell. Just as the Hebrews' clothing did not wear out in the desert (), the shell of the ''Ḥillazon'' does not wear out. Garments tied with ''tekhelet'' and indigo have such similar appearance that only God can distinguish them. Elsewhere, one opinion says that there is no chemical test which can distinguish between ''tekhelet'' and indigo wool, but another opinion describes such a test and tells the story of it working successfully. Trapping the ''Ḥillazon'' is considered a violation of Shabbat. In the time of the Talmud the ''hilazon'' was used as part of a remedy for hemorrhoids, though this may refer to a different species of snail.

Various animals have been suggested as the ''ḥillazon''.

''Hexaplex trunculus''

In his doctoral thesis (London, 1913) on the subject, Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog named ''Hexaplex trunculus'' (then known by the name "Murex trunculus") as the most likely candidate for the dye's source. Herzog concluded “it is very unlikely that the ''tekhelet''-hillazon is not the snail called murex trunculus, but though unlikely, it is still possible.” Though ''Hexaplex trunculus'' fulfilled many of the Talmudic criteria, Herzog's inability to consistently obtain blue dye (sometimes the dye was purple) from the snail precluded him from declaring it to be the dye source. In the 1980s, Otto Elsner, a chemist from the Shenkar College of Fibers in Israel, discovered that if a solution of the dye was exposed to ultraviolet rays, such as from sunlight, blue instead of purple was consistently produced. In 1988, Rabbi Eliyahu Tavger dyed ''Tekhelet'' from ''H. trunculus'' for the ''Mitzvah'' (commandment) of ''Tzitzit'' for the first time in recent history. Based on this work, four years later, the ''Ptil Tekhelet'' Organization was founded to educate about the dye production process, and to make the dye available for all who desire to use it. The television show ''The Naked Archaeologist'' interviews an Israeli scientist who also makes the claim that this mollusk is the correct animal. A demonstration of the production of the blue dye using sunlight to produce the blue color is shown. The dye is extracted from the hypobranchial gland of ''Hexaplex trunculus'' snails.

Chemically, exposure to sunlight turns the red 6,6'-dibromoindigo in snails into a mixture of blue indigo dye and blue-purple 6-bromoindigo. The ''leuco'' (white) solution form of dibromoindigo loses some bromines in the ultraviolet radiation.

Arguments for Hexaplex Trunculus

The dye produced by Hexaplex has the exact same chemical composition as indigo, corresponding to the statement that only God can distinguish the ''tekhelet'' from indigo garments.

In the area between Tyre and Haifa where the ''hilazon'' was found, piles of murex shells hundreds of yards long have been found, apparently the result of dying operations. In Tel Shikmona (near Haifa), a "biblical era purple dye workshop" was found including relics of purple dye produced from sea snails, as well as textile manufacturing equipment.

Hexaplex has a hard external shell, as the ''hilazon'' appears to.

The word ''Ḥillazon'' is cognate to the Arabic word ''halazuun'', meaning snail. Hexaplex opponents suggest that in ancient times the word might have referred to a broader category of animals, perhaps including other candidate species such as the cuttlefish.

Another requirement according to the Talmud is that the dye cannot fade, and the Murex dye does not fade and can only be removed from wool with bleach.

The Talmud states that the ''hillazon'' is preferably kept alive while the dye is extracted, as killing it causes the dye to degrade. This matches both ancient descriptions of the Hexaplex dying process, and also modern experience that an enzyme in the snail needed for dye production decays quickly after death.

The Jerusalem Talmud translates ''tekhelet'' as ''porporin''; similarly ''Musaf Aruch'' translates ''tekhelet'' as ''parpar''. These translations refer to the Latin term ''purpura'', meaning the dye produced by Hexaplex snails. Similarly, Yair Bacharach stated that ''tekhelet'' was derived from ''purpura'' snails, even though this forced him to conclude that the color of ''tekhelet'' was purple rather than blue, as in his era it was unknown how to produce blue dye from Hexaplex.

The word porforin, or porpora, or porphoros is used in the midrash as well as many other Jewish texts to refer to the ''Ḥillazon'', and this is the Greek translation of ''Murex trunculus''. Pliny and Aristotle also both refer to the Porpura as being the source for purple and blue dyes, showing that the Murex has a long history of being used for blue dye.

speaks of treasures hidden in the sand; the Talmud states that the word "treasures" refers to the ''Ḥillazon''. Similarly, Hexaplex trunculus often burrows into the sand, making it difficult to detect even by scuba divers.

While (as described in the next section) Hexaplex arguably does not fit every textual description of the ''hillazon'', nevertheless "Of the thousands of fish and mollusks that were studied to date, no other fish has been found that can produce the ''tekhelet'' color" which suggests that there is no more likely alternative species.

Arguments against Hexaplex Trunculus

The Talmud equates the colors of ''tekhelet'' and indigo, but also gives a practical test to distinguish between the two fabrics. Seemingly, since the color-producing compounds in ''Hexaplex trunculus'' and indigo are identical, no test should be able to distinguish them. However, according to Professor Otto Elsner, while Hexaplex and indigo have the same color-producing compound, they also contain other compounds which differ and may lead to a different response in the practical test. According to Professor Ziderman, the test consists of a chemical reduction reaction occurring when hydrogen is produced by decaying organic matter. Indigo (from a vegetable source) is more strongly reduced than the debrominated indigo found in snail ''tekhelet'' (assuming a blue-purple rather than pure blue ''tekhelet''), leading to a different result to the test.

The ''hillazons body resembles the sea. This does not appear to be true of Hexaplex. Hexaplex supporters argue that when alive Hexaplex is well camouflaged and has a similar appearance to the sea floor, apparently due to algae which grow on its shell. This shell color can even be blue, similar to the sea.

The ''hillazon'' has a "form like a fish", which a snail seemingly does not. Hexaplex supporters reply that its shell somewhat resembles a fish in shape. Similarly Maimonides, Tosafot, and Rashi say the ''Ḥillazon'' is a "fish" (דג), while Hexaplex is a snail rather than a fish. Hexaplex supporters argue that many forms of aquatic life (e.g., shellfish — of which sea snails would be an example) are also called "דגים" in Hebrew.

The ''hillazon'' is said to come up from the sea once every 70 years. It is unclear what this is exactly referring to, but the Hexaplex has no such cycle. Hexaplex supporters note that elsewhere the Talmud makes clear that the ''hillazon'' was also hunted by normal methods at other times.Shabbat 75a Some sources say the reference to "70 years" does not imply a periodic cycle, but rather simply that this phenomenon is a rare event. Hexaplex may have cycles of other lengths which inspired this statement: a seven-month cycle for harvesting Hexaplex was claimed by Pliny and confirmed by modern researchers, while Hexaplex appears to have a yearly behavioral cycle in which it burrows in the sand in summer and emerges to swim in winter. Other sources claim that the 70-year cycle was a miraculous occurrence which no longer occurs, or else that the decrease in Hexaplex population numbers may have caused this behavior to cease.

There are two other snails that produce the same dye as Hexaplex trunculus: Bolinus brandaris and Stramonita haemastoma, so how do we know which one is the ''Ḥillazon''? Some argue that dye from any of these species would be valid. Alternatively: Hexaplex trunculus contains more natural indigo and thus is a more natural source for blue ''tekhelet'', and archaeological finds show Hexaplex trunculus being processed separately from snails of the other species, suggesting that a different color was derived from this species.

Trapping the ''Ḥillazon'' is a violation of Shabbat. However, according to some rishonim, in general it is permitted to capture slow-moving animals like snails on Shabbat (as capturing them requires only a trivial effort - בחד שחיא). This contradiction suggests that the ''hillazon'' is not a snail. Hexaplex supporters argue that since Hexaplex tends to camouflage itself and hide in the sand, capturing it is a difficult process and thus (by some opinions) forbidden.

Rambam, describing the ''Ḥillazon'', says that "its blood is as black as ink", which is not true of Hexaplex. Hexaplex supporters argue that this statement has no apparent source earlier than Rambam, and appears to be based on a mistaken statement by Aristotle. In any case, a black precipitate can in fact be derived from Hexaplex, which is then refined into dye.

Tractate Menachot and the Rambam explain the process for making the dye for ''tekhelet'', and neither of them mention explicitly that it needs to be placed in the sunlight. Putting the dye in sunlight is a requirement to make the dye from the murex trunculus.

''Sepia officinalis''

In 1887, Grand Rabbi Gershon Henoch Leiner, the Radziner Rebbe, researched the subject and concluded that ''Sepia officinalis {{redire ...