Reply To: Techeiles 🔵❎🐌☑️🐟

Not to beat a dead horse, but over the years since this discussion started, I have been thinking about the color of Techeiles. I think we already established here from historical sources (Philo, Josephus, the shul) that Techeiles is blue. However the Rishonim and Acharonim were probably not working with those sources and therefore it is possible that some of them came to different conclusions. I think that the case for a shita that holds it was green is pretty strong. Rashi, as far as I have seen, does not anywhere say that Techeiles is blue. On the other hand he does say that Techeiles is close to the color of leek green, a sentiment echoed by the Bartenura. Rabbeinu Yonah has a kashya on those who hold that karti is green – when the Mishnah says bein techeiles lekarti it is talking about to very similar things, clearly not blue and green. Therefore he holds that karti is a shade of blue. Now Rashi explains karti as green. How does he address Rabbeinu Yonah’s question? The simple answer would be that he holds that Techeiles is green and therefore “bein techeiles lekarti” is comparing two shades of green.

The Mileches Shlomo writes ??? ???? ?????? ???

??? ???? ??? ?? ????? ????? ???? ????? ????? ??? and immediately follows this by quoting the Ibn Ezra’s pshat in the color of techeiles. This is a peirush on the word techeiles in the mishnah so it should be pretty clear that he is explaining the color of techeiles as opposed to the color of the chilazon. The Chazon Nachum claims that it is referring to the color of the chilazon not the color of techeiles. I would suggest that the CHazon Nachum had to say this because he was working with a hanacha that techeiles is blue. But it doesn’t fit so well. If you are trying to explain what color techeiles is why would you not say what color techeiles is and only say what color the chilazon is if it is a different color? Also the juxtaposition of the Ibn Ezra implies that the quote from ??? ???? ?????? is also about the color of techeiles.

It is very reasonable that these commentators thought that techeiles was green. As I pointed out a couple of years ago, the Yerushalmi and various midrashim, when listing the color progression from techeiles to the rakia, have “???? ??????” in between. If Techeiles is blue then this would be saying that blue is domeh to green which is domeh to blue. Whereas if techeiles is green then it would be saying that (a shade of) green is domeh to (another shade of) green ehich is domeh to blue etc. (This could get a little dicey because some of the girsas have ???? ???? ??? ??? ???? ?????? so you would have the same problem unless you say that ?? is green.) In fact Tosafos says that the Yerushalmi implies that techeiles is green and the Marei Panim says that it seems to be a machlokes/stirah between the Bavli and Yerushalmi.

So all in all, while in practice it does seem pretty clear that Techeiles is blue, it also seems that there is definitely room for a shitta to say that it’s green and we have no need to monolithically attempt to interpret everyone as saying that it’s blue.