blue shirt

clevlandboy,

you are correct, that probably contributed to the development of the minhag of saying the bracha silently

Hello jO jO,

This the story in short. For more information go to tekhelet.com .

Attempts have been made in the past to find the lost method of extracting the tcheles dye, the main obstacle having been the difficulty in identifying the sea creature (chilazon)that provides the dye. The Rizhnitzer rebbe in the 1800s thought he had found it, but it had three problems. One, it did not match any of the criteria that the gemara mentions as simanim for the creature. Two, many other creatures can produce the same exact dye. Three, the dye itself did not fulfill the criteria of the gemara and so it was clear that there was nothing unique about the rizhnitzer dye other than that it was a pretty color of blue. Tcheiles it was not.

Rav Yakov Herzog zt”l, Chief Rabbi of Israel after Rav Kook, a true Torah genius, had written his doctorate as a young man on this subject, and was convinced he had found the true chilazon . The process of the extraction of the dye produced ALL of the necessary properties of true tcheiles as stated in the gemara, except for one. The problem? Tcheiles is supposed to be blueish, and no matter how hard he tried, the color that he found was….purple. Rav Herzog eventually became discouraged and gave up on his attempts. He died still wondering where he had gone wrong.

By chance, a relatively short time ago, someone was playing with the process of Rav Herzog, and sure enough, came up with the same purple color. However, without serious thought he left the bottle with the purplish wool on the windowsill, and when he came back the next day, lo and behold, the color was sky blue (domeh larakia). He had accidentally discovered the missing link. At a specific stage in the process, the dye had to be exposed to sunlight, which within minutes turned it from purple to blue. Rav Herzog did all his experiments inside a laboratory and so the wool was never exposed to sunlight at the right moment and hence remained a fast purple.

I must mention that this tcheiles fulfills every single nuance that the gemara describes, including the indistinguishability from kala Ilan, a plant source dye which the gemara says looks identical. Chemical analysis shows that the two are indeed chemically identical.

The tcheiles institute conducts tcheiles making workshops in the western galil, I participated in one, it was fun and it works. Obviously for tztitzis purposes the the process must be strictly controlled, we are not dealing with finger painting after all. This is a mitzvah mede’oraiso.

One more point. Whether bizman hazeh one should wear tcheiles is a separate issue and has many sides to it. Many rabbonim claim that since the mesorah was lost, we cannot reinstitute it. This is not a simple issue and is beyond the scope of a site such as this. But it is beautifully clear that the original tcheiles has indeed been identified.

The truth is that sherut leumi doesn’t take control away any more than sending a girl to seminary in Israel or out of town. If a girl doesn’t sleep at home every night, there is no control. Any fathers out there who send their daughters away from home and feel totally in control of them? I venture to say that it is difficult enough to be in control when they ARE home, but when they are not? wishful thinking.

oomis1105,

I agree with you 100%. First, I assume that if there is texting, the two parties are not close enough to converse. Since texting is less expensive by far, they prefer that. Second, I agree with you totally about spelling skills. I hold myself back from admonishing some of the young writers here on YWN who cannot trouble themselves to write “you” instead of “u”, “why” instead of “y”, etc…It is annoying, obscures their intent and reduces their messages to mindless chatter. Finally, I am horrified that there are those who text while driving. Where I live there are heavy fines for holding a cellphone to an ear while driving and still people do it all the time. But texting? Mind boggling.

What I meant was that texting from home or the street is just an alternative to making an actual call, and it will not be going away anytime soon. Unfortunate.

Well, ujm, I reread the writer’s letter carefully. She dresses, I quote, “more modern”. Your Pavlovian response that immediately translated “more modern” to “pritzus” is disgusting.

To the letter writer,

Be comforted by the fact that on the day of judgement, the Holy Judge Yishtabach Shemo will not be ujm.

One must be extremely hesitant to deligitimize minhagim that have lasted generations if not hundreds of years or more. When I was a child, the shatz never said ga’al yisrael out loud, and I surmise that most of you out there who are over 50 and certainly over 60 can verify this. In the last 25-30 years or so, the minhag of saying it out loud has gained momentum and as others have pointed out , it is probably the correct way to do it. But to knock the “old” way? Absolutely not.

On a related note, if you do a little research, you will find that ending any phrase with a kamatz instead of segol in the davening is a recent invention beginning with the haskalic medakdikim in the 1700s, some of whom were at best only quasi-observant Jews. You will not find any of these changes in nuscha’ei edot hamizrach, and there is a reason for that. This includes gefen-gafen, eved-aved, gever-gaver, geshem-gashem, and many other changes which NEVER EXISTED in previous nuschaos. And yet, almost all of us say gafen, aved, gaver (geshem has made a serious comeback). A mistake? Yes. But it is entrenched and accepted (find me an ashkenazic siddur that prints shelo asani eved), and to deligitimize it may be intellectually stimulating, but mezalzel bichvod our fathers and grandfathers, and it would be fruitless as well. That’s the way it developed and that’s the way it is now. We have bigger problems to solve than these.

to lgbg

You mean “accepted”, not “excepted”. The two words have nothing in common. Look in a dictionary. Without regard to the content of your message, it loses its value if you cannot write what you mean.

to kollelwife,

I am sorry, but the claim that those women caused a reduction in hatzalah calls is dubious at best, borderline ridiculous and dangerous in any case.

1. There is no way of knowing this, absolutely no way

2. I would like to know if these women are willing to accept the responsibility if hatzalah calls increase at any given time (a certainty, by the way)

3. which hatzalah? local? national? bnei brak too? why not?

4. which time period? an hour? a day? a month? any time period that makes it fit?

Illogical claims such as these where B follows A, therefore A caused B are dangerous because they expose themeselves to a multitude of potentially opposite claims that are just as valid.

Tznius is lauditory and important, new takanos are a wonderful idea, let’s leave it at that. Don’t make magic out of it, it is unnecessary and potentially damaging.