Tekelet

[TalAbrams]

Perhaps I am overlooking something in my research so I need some help understanding something.
1) The command to wear Tzitzit was given in the wilderness of the desert.
2) The chilazon of talmud is a sea creature, whether fish or mollusk.
3) Leviticus and Deuteronomy both say that fish without fins and scales are a detestable and unclean to us.
4) Where, in the desert did we find these mollusks or cuttlefish?
5) How can we touch the Torah with tzitzit that has been dyed blue (tekelet) by an unclean and detestable thing?
6) LXX translates the word to hyacinth. Why the difference?

 

[Rakhel]

I can only answer this to the best of my knowledge, and I may still be wrong, but this my understanding of the blue thread.

1. The jury is still out as to the exact color or what substance was used to make this color.

2. As it being mollusks or cuttlefish, the route is rumored to have initially followed the coast of the southern Siani, so they may have come into contact with some kind of fish.
3. The touching of things make by unclean animals. We are allowed to eat honey but not the bees. (Hmmm...does this mean bees are Jewish? Just kidding )

4. As for why the re-translated word.. I refer you back to my first answer.

 

[TalAbrams]

#3) Yes I understand but bees were not called detestable to us in Torah as was the unclean fish.

 

[Caladan]

Perhaps I am overlooking something in my research so I need some help understanding something.
1) The command to wear Tzitzit was given in the wilderness of the desert.
2) The chilazon of talmud is a sea creature, whether fish or mollusk.
3) Leviticus and Deuteronomy both say that fish without fins and scales are a detestable and unclean to us.
4) Where, in the desert did we find these mollusks or cuttlefish?
5) How can we touch the Torah with tzitzit that has been dyed blue (tekelet) by an unclean and detestable thing?
6) LXX translates the word to hyacinth. Why the difference?

I think you are overlooking a long time span of mediterranean history an culture.
the purple dye, or Tyrian purple and also known as royal purple, was extracted from sea snails by the Phoenicians on the coast line of modern Lebanon, Israel and Syria. as the Phoenicians, other middle eastern and mediterranean cultures including the Jews and Byzantium produced or used the sea snails of the mediterranean to produce these magnificent colours. the bible calls these colours: Argaman and Tekhelet in biblical Hebrew. meaning red and indigo.
the Tekhelet dye has more biblical roots in it than the later rabbinical Talmud. as the Bible gives us a description of the use of the purple dye for the clothing of the High Priest and for the tapestries of the Mishkan or the tabernacle.

 

[HiddenDjinn]

I think you are overlooking a long time span of mediterranean history an culture.
the purple dye, or Tyrian purple and also known as royal purple, was extracted from sea snails by the Phoenicians on the coast line of modern Lebanon, Israel and Syria. as the Phoenicians, other middle eastern and mediterranean cultures including the Jews and Byzantium produced or used the sea snails of the mediterranean to produce these magnificent colours. the bible calls these colours: Argaman and Tekhelet in biblical Hebrew. meaning red and indigo.
the Tekhelet dye has more biblical roots in it than the later rabbinical Talmud. as the Bible gives us a description of the use of the purple dye for the clothing of the High Priest and for the tapestries of the Mishkan or the tabernacle.

This is the Orthodox DIR, Caladan. Such opinion may be a breach of the rules.

 

[TalAbrams]

Caladan,
I gather that tekelet simply means the color blue or a shade thereof.
If the thread in tzitzit was dyed using the indigo or any other plant, well and good.
But if the dye was from something which Torah calls, " detestable", it could not possibly have been used. It would seem to fall in the category of touching a carcase.
The High Priest's clothing could never have been dyed with such a thing. The indigo plant is native to the entire middle east and would make sense. So my point, again, is:
If dyed with a detestable, unclean animal how could the High Priest's clothing be holy?
How could the tzitzit be allowed to touch a Torah scroll.
BTW, I completely agree with your words on terrorists and laud you for speaking out.
The time for Jews to be politically correct in their speech and actions should forever be over. We need to be Torah correct. TA

 

[TalAbrams]

I am having a lot of difficulties with understanding the rules here.
What exactly did Caladan say that was wrong?
I started a thread and he voice his opinion.
I thought that was the point here.
Old and confused

 

[Levite]

Perhaps I am overlooking something in my research so I need some help understanding something.
1) The command to wear Tzitzit was given in the wilderness of the desert.
2) The chilazon of talmud is a sea creature, whether fish or mollusk.
3) Leviticus and Deuteronomy both say that fish without fins and scales are a detestable and unclean to us.
4) Where, in the desert did we find these mollusks or cuttlefish?
5) How can we touch the Torah with tzitzit that has been dyed blue (tekelet) by an unclean and detestable thing?
6) LXX translates the word to hyacinth. Why the difference?

I gather that tekelet simply means the color blue or a shade thereof.
If the thread in tzitzit was dyed using the indigo or any other plant, well and good.
But if the dye was from something which Torah calls, " detestable", it could not possibly have been used. It would seem to fall in the category of touching a carcase.
The High Priest's clothing could never have been dyed with such a thing. The indigo plant is native to the entire middle east and would make sense. So my point, again, is:
If dyed with a detestable, unclean animal how could the High Priest's clothing be holy?
How could the tzitzit be allowed to touch a Torah scroll.

Caladan's right-- techeilet comes from the Tyrian murex sea snail. There are several Orthodox sources that agree with this.

But there are many examples in halachah of instances where an animal itself may be unkosher, but products made from it (things not intended for eating or drinking) may be permissible to use under certain circumstances. Bees and honey, as rakhel said, is even an example where the animal is unkosher and we can eat what it produces. But, for example, horses are unkosher, and yet one is permitted to wear, say, a belt made of horse hide. Pigs are unkosher, and yet one is permitted to wear, say, shoes made of pigskin leather.

It is also the case that sometimes the Torah can command us to do things in specific circumstances that might be prohibited in other circumstances, and we do them because we are commanded to do them, and not because we might be commanded against them in other cases. For example, yibum (levirate marriage): normally, a brother's wife is prohibited to a man-- it would usually be one of the arayot. But in the case of yibum, a man is specifically commanded to sleep with his brother's wife.

The LXX translates it as hyakinthos because it was unsure about the Tyrian murex snail, and because in the time of the Septuagint, a popular purplish dye was distilled from the hyacinth flower.

But we never actually made the techeilet. We purchased it. Not only because we weren't near an ocean while we were in the wilderness, but because it would have been difficult for us to make it in a ritually pure way. The Tyrians made it, and we either purchased it from caravans travelling through the wilderness, or we took it with us from Egypt when we went out.

In any case, though, even if there were a question of tum'ah from the techeilet, it wouldn't be a problem to touch a Torah scroll with it, because a sefer Torah is not susceptible to tum'ah-- it cannot become tamei. The only question would involve kavod, since normally we do not approach a Torah scroll with tamei things out of respect-- but since we are commanded to wear techeilet, this should not be an overriding issue.

 

[TalAbrams]

Thanks Levite. It all makes sense. On to the next study.

 

[TalAbrams]

My bad....not quite all of it makes sense.

"But we never actually made the techeilet. We purchased it. Not only because we weren't near an ocean while we were in the wilderness, but because it would have been difficult for us to make it in a ritually pure way."

Levite, I do not mean to belabor this issue but.......
We purchased it from gentiles?
We would not have been able to make it in a ritually pure way?
How could Gentiles have made it ritually pure?
Vayikra says tha a niddah and anything she sits on, lies down on or touches becomes ritually impure. She cannot touch a Sefer Torah.
I am not advanced enough to understand all of tractate Niddah but it does seem to back these things up.

"sefer Torah is not susceptible to tum'ah"

I realize that The Rambam in Hilchos Sefer Torah (10:8) rules that any person who is tamei, such as a menstruating woman or a gentile is permitted to touch a Sefer Torah as the principle is that Torah cannot become impure.
However, The Rambam is not considered infallible, as is a Pope by the Roman Church.
Yirmiyahu 23 says that the "words" of Sefer Torah are not susceptible to tum'ah-- it cannot become tamei. This has to do with praying women. Words only not the scroll itself.

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?"
This is one of the scariest questions I can imagine, especially so, now, under the present administration.
"Far too many people say it could never happen again" and "it could never happen here."
It is happening here and abroad at an alarming rate.