Techeiles 🔵❎🐌☑️🐟

In honor of Techeiles being in both last week’s and this week’s parsha:

When we left off approximately a year ago we were debating whether there is a possibility that Techeiles is not blue. There are several indications of this.

1)None of the Talmudic Era sources say that Techeiles was blue. The only information that we are given is in the form of comparisons to the sea the grass the trees the sky the throne of glory the saphire stone the”light” the rainbow etc. Many mefarshim (e.g. Rashi, Ritva, Kli Yakar…)explain this as a progressive comparison i.e. Techeiles is not Domeh to the saphire the throne or the sky, it is only Domeh to the first step which is in turn Domeh to the next step and so on. These mefarshim explicitly say that it is not Domeh to the latter steps.(And the same Chacham Tzvi that said that you can say “Domeh” even if it’s not so Domeh, said that you can’t say that it’s not Domeh if it is Domeh.) Now lets take the set of comparisons mentioned in the midrash on Tehillim. There are two different versions, both of which have the grass and the trees as early steps. Now if Techeiles is blue, then in effect these mefarshim are saying that blue is Domeh to green but not to blue. If Techeiles would be some shade of green then it would make sense that the comparisons start with green and go to blue. (Granted one of the versions says that Techeiles is Domeh to the sea which is Domeh to the grass, but as several people said before, the sea can be green.)

2)I have yet to find any of the classic commentators on either Chumash or Gemara use a term that definitively means blue. They all use ambiguous terms such as yarok or various comparisons. The only Rishon that I have seen who definitively says that it is blue is the Rambam in Hilchos Tzitzis 2:1 where he uses the word kachol.(Although it is mashma from Tosafos in Chullin 47b that it is blue.) If all these other Rishonim held that it was blue why didn’t they say “kachol” like the Rambam and like Rashi in Chulin(ibid) instead of using a word that can refer to at least three different colors? It seems that there was a machlokes as to what color it was, because there are those who do compare Techeiles directly to the sky etc. Unless they are arguing over what the Gemara means when it says “sky”. Furthermore, It seems as if the Mileches Shlomo understood R’ Shlomo Sirilov as saying that Techeiles is green. And the mefarshim explain “karti” as yarok which is not very helpful if the mishna is distinguishing between Techeiles and karti and you explain them both as yarok yet you mean two different colors. Whereas if Techeiles was green it would merely be using the same word to describe two shades of the same color much the same as what we do in English.

All the more reason to specify which color you mean

I would love to agree to that. It would definitely simplify matters. But everyone else here claims that there is an undisputed mesorah directly back to Moshe Rabeinu that Techeiles can only be blue.

Although the Mordechai in Hilchos Nidda does seem to say that techeiles is an example of “yarok” meaning blue.

Although I have seen that the Rosh in chulin explicitly says that Techeiles is blue, Tosafos in succah says explicitly that it seems from the Yerushalmi that it is green and that it seems from the gemara in chulin that it is yellow.

Also check out the Yerushalmi in Berachos on the second Mishna with the Marey Panim. He spells out Befairush that the Talmud Bavli is mashma blue and the Talmud Yerushalmi is mashma green.

Granted we normally pasken like bavli over yerushalmi. However in this case it is not a halachic machlokes nor even a machlokes at all. Both the Ammoraim in Bavel and Eretz Yisroel had the same Techeiles, in fact the Ammoraim in Bavel probably imported Techeiles from Eretz Yisroel. There was no dispute as to what Techeiles was. However, the Talmud Bavli and the Talmud Yerushalmi describe the color of Techeiles differently. (There are Midrashim as well that say Domeh L’asavim, like the Yerushalmi does.) Obviously they are describing the same color. The question then becomes “which color bests fits into both descriptions”. The Rishonim who speak about the color cannot be authoritative, because none of them had Techeiles. However, what we can glean from the Rishonim is that they felt that there interpretaions were consistent with the Talmudic era literature.

why should you follow the ones that are clear that it is not green?

So you agree that the Bavli is mashma blue while the Yerushalmi is mashma green. They both had the same Techeiles so it’s obviously not a machlokes. How do you then reconcile this seeming contradiction. See, if you say that Techeiles is green, there is a simple answer. All the Murex Trunculus supporters claim that the Yam can be green (in order to fit the description of the chilazon). Well if the Yam is green and Techeiles is green and Asavim is green then there’s no problem. But if Techeiles is blue then you cannot explain the seeming contradiction.

Rashi in the last perek of Berachos describes Techeiles as “Yarok and someone whose face is Yarok is sick”. People who are sick are generally described as green not blue. (For proof, play roller coaster tycoon and click on a guest who gets off a really intense/nauseating roller coaster. You will see a green face.)