And again there are several Midrashim which also say Asavim.

I want you to admit that there is a tremendous kashya on the Rishonim from the Yerushalmi as well as several Midrashim that mention Asavim. And that there’s a kashya of why the Gemara says “Yam domeh l’rakia” instead of “techeiles domeh l’rakia” if you claimthat they are all the same color. The Gra might change the girsa but what about everyone who doesn’t?

By the way did you notice the part of the Ritva that you specifically left out where he says the pshat of not being directly domeh? Anyway, both of those pshatim explain why Yam is mentioned. But they don’t explain why it says that the Yam is domeh to the Rakia as opposed to saying that Techeiles is Domeh to the Rakia.

The Mishnas R’ Elazar is not quite a Mefurash Bavli and anyway like I said before, it’s not a problem to say “Techeiles Domeh L’sapir” even if Techeiles is green because you can compare things even if they’re not exactly alike, especially since we already know that it’s domeh to sapir through a few steps.

And even if the pesukim do indicate that the rakia, kisei, and sapir are all the same color, they do not indicate that the Yam and Techeiles are also that same color. So still no Mefurash Bavli.

I don’t think the pesukim indicate that they are the exact same color. The prefix ? can mean that they are similar but not exact. Since the Bavli does not compare Techeiles directly to the Rakia, there is no Mefurash Bavli. Also according to you why does the Gemara bring in Yam? (You could answer like Rashi that Techeiles is not so similar to Rakia but it is to Yam, but then there would be no Mefurash Bavli.) Maybe you will try to answer that even though the Yam serves no purpose in identifying the color,the Gemara wanted to bring bring it in for the symbolism of the nisim done at the sea (which Rashi mentions), but then the Gemara should have said that Techeiles is Domeh L’yam and Domeh L’rakia. But that’s not what it said. So if anything, there’s a mefurash Bavli that Techeiles is not directly Domeh L’rakia.

And again, you can’t disregard the Yerushalmi, it has to fit in with the Bavli.

The point of focusing on Talmudic literature is that none of the rishonim had Techeiles, so anything they say is merely an educated guess albeit filtered through their knowledge of the afforementioned Talmudic literature.

I am merely trying to explain why it doesn’t make sense to say that Techeiles is blue. Do you disagree with my assesment or do you agree with it but we just have to follow the Rishonim? If uo disagree then please provide an answer.(Changing every girsa is not an answer.) If you agree but feel threatened by Rishonim, then as I have already pointed out Tosfos says befairush that the Yerushalmi implies green. Tosfos doesn’t change the girsa nor reject the Yerushalmi because of Kala Ilan or historians(I don’t if they were accessible then) or the abundance of Rishonim that say that it’s blue. Also bear in mind that the definition of Kala Ilan that you are using comes from the Rishonim and they may have defined it as indigo because they held that Techeiles is blue as opposed to holding that Techeiles is blue because Kala Ilan is blue. So it could very well be that anyone who hold sthat Techeiles is green would also hold that kala ilan is something else or even that kala ilan is a general term for any non chilazon dye (probably plant dyes specifically based on the word “ilan”).

Since there seems to be some confusion as to what my point was, I will restate it:

Focusing only on Talmudic era literature descriptions of Techeiles, it makes more sense to say that Techeiles is green rather than blue because if you say that Techeiles is blue thwn there are several places where the comparison is “blue resembles green which resembles blue/green (depending on how you view “Yam”) which in turn resembles blue”. That does not sound very logical. However if Techeiles is green then there are several places where the comparison is “green resembles green which resembles green/blue which resembles blue which resembles blue…

which makes perfect sense, even more so when you consider the opinions that Techeiles is not directly Domeh to the rakia/kisei/sapir.

Sorry, part of my last statement somehow got cut out. In between my third to last and second to last statements I had said the following: (Therefore, even if it would say Domeh L’rakia it wouldn’t be a problem.)

Anyway, Meseches Tzitzis does not say that Techeiles is Domeh L’rakia, rather it says that the chilazon is Domeh L’rakia (which ironically is worse for the Murex Trunculus). The Medrash Rabba in several places syas “Domeh L’yam…” but at the end of Shelach it does say “Domeh Lrakia”, However as I have already pointed out, the Maharzu emends it to conform with all the other places. (Also if Techeiles is Domeh L’rakia then it’s shver on all the mefarshim who explain the Gemara that it’s not directly domeh L’rakia but rather a step by step progression from Techeiles to Yam to Rakia.)

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.)

Grass is green. Trees are green. It doesn’t say that Techeiles is Domeh to the plant life that is blue. It says DomehL’asavim and Domeh L’ilanos.

You are right that this doesn’t fit in with all the Rishonim who say that it’s blue, and I don’t know how they understood the Yerushalmi and various Midrashim that compare Techeiles to Asavim.

Tosfos in Succa that I quoted earlier. The Mareh Panim on the Yerushalmi. Both say that the the Yerushalmi indicates that it is green. Many Rishonim give ambiguous explanations which can easily mean green.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

4) The Midrash says that the ?? is ???? ?????? and there is a girsa that Techeiles is ???? ??????.

7) Everything would work out if Techeiles was green (or turquoise). It could fit into ???? ???. It would fit into ???? ??????. And then you could even claim that the Murex Trunculus is ???? ???.

“You’re right ????? ???? didn’t learn ??”? like ???? ????.”

Not necessarily. It is possible that ??”? is saying pshat in ???” ???? ????”. I.e. he is saying that when the mishna says ???? it means chilazon. Then it could be that the ????? ???? agrees that ??”? is talking about the color of the body. This would also resolve the relevance issue.

What do you mean know one knows what the Ibn Ezra meant? And who cares that the yam shel shlomo was not such a fan of him? The rambam clearly was. But then again, the Yam shel shlomo had what to say about the Rambam also. Maybe we don’t know if the Ibn Ezra meant green or blue, but that is largely irrelevant. I brought in the Ibn Ezra to prove that according to the Mileches Shlomo, ?”? ??????? was not talking about the chilazon but rather about techeiles. Which means that there is definitely a shita that techeiles is not blue. That being the case, it could very well be that Rashi and the Ibn Ezra (and others) subscribe to such a shita.

The fact that they are eleven lines apart was not part of the raya. It was merely for dramatic effect. My point was that we see that both Techeiles and the Chilazon are ???? ??? and the braisos are obviuosly not arguing about the color of techeiles, the chilazon, or the ??, and there is no reason to assume that the two braisos are using the word ?? to mean two different things (other rhen the fact that you want it to fit with the murex trunculus).

Also see Rashi in Chullin (47b s.v.??????) where he differentiates between ???? and ????. (I’m not saying that this means that ???? can’t mean blue, I am merely showing that Rashi knew of the word ???? and that there are definitely times that ???? means green, therefore it would be odd for him to describe Techeiles as ???? if he meant blue.)

“Also keep in mind that the “eleven lines prior” is not part of the argument. The gemara which brings different braisos for different reasons. The inyan of ???? ????? came from ??? ????? ?? ???. Now why should we cut out part of a Braisa?

In addition the 1st braisa says

???? ??? ?’ ???? ???? ?? ????? ???? ??? ???? ???????

which is obviously a much higher ???? of ????. It has to be different than everything else in that sense.”

I don’t have the slightest idea what this is supposed to mean. Care to explain?

That doesn’t explain how you know that Rashi didn’t also mean green.