The Jewish Press has an interesting interview with Rav Heschel Shachter.

There are 3 points in the interview that are interesting to me (people interested in the female rabbi issue might be interested in that one as well).

1. Har Habayit:

There is a growing movement in Israel of frum Jews ascending Har Habyit after going to the mikveh. What’s your opinion on this movement?The Rabbanut said you’re not allowed to go on the Har Habayit. Now, the majority of the Jews in Eretz Yisrael are not shomrei mitzvos and are not really interested in what the Rabbanut says. In fact, they want to do away with the Rabbanut because it gives them problems – a kohen can’t marry a grushah, he can’t marry a mamzeres, he can’t intermarry, etc. In Bnei Brak and Meah Shearim, they also couldn’t care less what the Rabbanut says. So you’re left only with the Modern Orthodox, the Dati Leumi, and now they too are ignoring the Rabbanut by going on the Har Habayit.
So the government will do away with the whole Rabbanut. What do you need it for? In Bnei Brak they don’t hold from them, in Meah Shearim they don’t hold from them, the overwhelming majority are secular, and the Dati Leumi are also not listening.
How do you go on the Har Habayis? We’re going to be responsible for the demise of the Rabbanut. It will be a disaster. As bad as the situation is now, it’s going to be worse if there’s no Rabbanut.
Haven’t you said in the past that one may, in theory, walk on certain parts of Har Habayis?Yes, but if the Rabbanut said you shouldn’t go, you have to listen to what they say. If they say a kula and you want to be machmir, gesunterheit. But to be meikel against them I think is not right.

That is an interesting point he makes, and I don't dispute it (not that he needs me to agree or support his position). I would however suggest that if that logic works it raises an important question. If nobody is interested in the Rabbanut and nobody listens to the Rabbanut except for the Dati Leumi, and therefore they are obligated to follow the Rabbanut's decisions so the Rabbanut will not become completely pointless, why should we have a Rabbanut? According to Rav Schechter it is important to follow them in order to justify their existence, but really if the only people listening to the Rabbanut are one small sector of Israeli society, do we need a State body for this? Can we really justify the expense of the Rabbanut, let alone the need for the Rabbanut, if it is only just for the Dati Leumi community?

Another, more minor, question might be that not everyone going up to Har Habayit is Dati Leumi. There is an increasing number of Haredim ascending. So, do only Dati Leumi ascenders need to follow the Rabbanut's dictates on this and not ascend while Haredi ascenders can ascend, or do Haredi ascenders also need to stop? Furthermore, if Haredi ascenders don't listen to the Rabbanut anyway regarding anything else, why should/would they listen to the Rabbanut about this?
This is a minor question because the Haredi ascenders are a minority.   

2. kezayis of matza

Not long after Purim comes Pesach. Many people obsess over how much matzah they are supposed to eat at the Seder. Your definition of a kezayis, though, is rather smaller than what’s currently popular.I don’t know what’s popular. My father-in-law spent about two years by Rav Shimon Shkop rewriting the Shaarei Yosher. Rav Shkop asked the mashgiach from the Mir Yeshiva, Rav Yeruchom Levovitz, for a bachurwho had a nice style of Hebrew, so he sent my father-in-law. He was there about two years, so he ate the Seder by Rav Shimon Shkop. He said five boys ate a kezayis from one matza. That’s a pretty small kezayis.
Didn’t you once say a kezayis is the size of the palm of one’s hand?Rav Chaim Volozhiner says that.
So why do people think a kezayis is much larger than that?Exaggeration. They like to exaggerate about everything – l’hachmir and l’hakeil. Everybody exaggerates.

no comment necessary

3. techeiles

You are known as being in favor of wearing techeles nowadays. Why?It says in the Chumash that we should wear techeles.
But people claim we don’t know what authentic techeles is anymore.Okay, but there’s a very strong possibility that the [techeles produced by Ptil Tekhelet in Israel] may be the correct techeles, so if there is a possibility, safek d’Orasia l’chumra.

it is as simple as that

the fighter with the tzitzis is a boxer named Steve Cunningham. He fought an undercard match last night against Andrew Tabiti (Cunningham lost despite the tzitzis), leading up to the much more hyped Mayweather vs McGregor fight. He wears techelet too! I guess the "shmira" provided by wearing tzitzis doesn't apply during a boxing match, or maybe without the four cornered garment.....

Rabbi Nachum Eisenstein, a close student of Rav Elyashiv, made a big splash a couple of weeks ago when he was a guest rabbi on the Headlines podcast by R' Dovid Lichtenstein.

The topic of the podcast was parnassah and education (entitled "Halachos of Parnassah and the Tuition crisis") and when asked his opinion about the need for more basic "secular" education so the young men will possibly be able to be more successful with earning a living, Rav Eisenstein was, to put it mildly, unimpressed with the arguments and went into a screaming fit when discussing the topic. Rav Eisenstein concluded that most of the kollel yungerleit survive and it is only a small minority that are misfits and unsuccessful who need to resort to shnorring, and the secret  of the great success of the vast majority of the kollel yungerleit is a miracle and we cannot talk about it so as not to ruin the miracle and make it end. No education necessary.

R' Lichtenstein once again turned to Rav Eisenstein as one of the guest rabbis to comment in his latest podcast, this time on the topic of tcheiles.

The first two rabbis consulted spoke very calmly and lucidly about the various issues. One spoke in support of wearing tcheiles nowadays and went through a variety of proofs from chazal and science to support the conclusions that the tcheiles discovered "recently" is the real thing (or at least likely enough that it would be worth wearing). The second rabbi spoke in opposition, mostly based on mesorah, to wearing tcheiles today. It was a very interesting halachic presentation, with both sides presented.

And then he turned to Rav Nachum Eisenstein. Rav Eisenstein, once again, blew up and went into a screaming rage about how those who wear tcheiles are against the gedolim and their opinions are not valid and the gedolim knew all the proofs and still did not wear it and they are mevatel a mitzva of listening to the chachomim and it is connected to going to Har Habayis, and chadash assur min hatorah (new things are prohibited), yadda yadda yadda. No reasonable discussion, for or against, just railing against those who do differently.

Rav Natan Slifkin wrote some comments worth reading on the topic despite his not wearing tcheiles either and in agreement with some points of Rav Eisenstein's opinion, they diverge from rav Eisenstein's rhetoric.

In light of what Harry Maryles wrote about Rabbi Eisenstein after the podcast on parnassah, considering what the Eisenstein boys were like when he knew them way back in yeshiva, listening to him speak on tcheiles was far more understandable. As HM concludes there, "I think he actually does know all of this. Rabbi Eisenstein is not stupid. But he is partisan. And if the official line of the Charedi world is that young people do not need an education, by golly he’s going to be the one to trumpet that the loudest. Once a Kanoi, always a Kanoi. None of this surprises me. That’s how he was as a student back in HTC. When evaluating anyone’s public comments, it helps to know where they are coming from. That is certainly no less true here."

Basically, if he is not willing to have a halachic discussion on a practical question and discuss the issues and opinions, no matter what his conclusion is, his opinion might be entertaining but it isn't worth much beyond that. His opinion might be good when he is trying to figure out how to behave, or for his own talmidim to figure out what to do, but that rhetoric doe snot have a place in halachic discussion. Even if you conclude that tcheiles should not be worn, or whatever the issue might be, the halacha could be, and should be, analyzed thoroughly and not just washed away with saying that so and so did or did not so that's what we have to do.

The Temple Mount Sifting Project, where they sift through the dirt and rubble removed from Temple Mount by the Arabs from their construction projects, has posted on its website the discovery of a number of shells of the Murex Trunculus snail.

Being that such snails are generally found along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and not inland, they suspect there might have been a dye producing "factory" on site or very nearby for the purpose of producing the argaman (purplish hue) and tekhelet (sky blue hue) dyes for the various needs of the Temple, as these two color dyes are both produced from the Murex snail.

It is not a great proof that the murex is the true source of the tekhelet, as perhaps it was only used for the argaman and not the tekhelet, but this discovery can definitely be added to the long list compiled by the Ptil Tekhelet organization as strong indicators of being the true source.

I went yesterday to the Tekhelet conference in Jerusalem, celebrating 100 years of tekhelet research. The occasion was marking the 100th anniversary of Chief Rabbi Dr. Isaac Halevi Herzog's doctoral dissertation on the topic of the tekhelet.

I thought that at least a good part of the conference would be dedicated to revealing new studies, new proofs, discussing some of the old proofs regarding tekhelet and the identification of the murex.

But it wasn't.

The conference was in part a commemoration of Rav Herzog, and a lot about tekhelet - the history, the discovery, plans for moving forward, and a lot of halachic and hashkafic discussion based on the tekhelet, even if not directly connected. Topics such as renewal in halacha, issues of torah and science, and the meaning of tekhelet, among others.

MK Yitzchak Herzog spoke, relating and explaining that tekhelet was not just a scientific enterprise or interest of his grandfather, but was completely part of his belief in the renewal of the Jewish people in Eretz Yisrael and it was an integral part of his Zionism. The study of the tekhelet and bringing it back to the Jewish people was part of the growth and advancement of the Jewish people and its return to the land.

There were plenty of speakers. The strangest was, perhaps, on a panel of archaeologists and scientists of different sorts, one person was a linguist who studied ancient languages and he discussed and explained the history of the word "tekhelet" and where it appears in ancient languages such as in Mesopotamian and its meaning. I was amazed that someone would turn that into a study.

I am personally a big fan of Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb and read his articles religiously in the Torah Tidbits. It was a pleasure to be able to meet him and to hear him speak. Rabbi Weinreb offered an analysis of the resistance to tekhelet. He said something very interesting,  saying that just like people repress bad, they also repress the sublime.

We heard from Dr. Zaidman, who has another tekhelet research organization. He described some of the work and what is happening moving forward - plans for growing tekhelet in large amounts in pools, and other ideas. Other great speakers on different topics included Rav Avraham Steinberg, Supreme Court Justice Neal Hendel, there was a panel dealing with issues of how to deal with rabbonim when talking about new innovations in halacha - discussed by Rabbi Riskin, Rabbi Burshtein of Machon Puah and Rabbi Vitman... among others.

The event was capped off by Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveitchik who discussed the ideas of the blue with the white and what they represent, both are needed in our lives. The white represents the simple, what can be easily understood, while the tekhelet represents the mysterious and the outer limit of human understanding..

During the day we also heard from Dr. Baruch Sterman and Dr. Ari Greenspan, as well as from others associated with the Ptil Tekhelet organization.






It is really amazing that there is so much research, thought and investment into tekhelet....

NOTE: I was not paid to review this book. It is an unbiased and objective review. If you have a book with Jewish or Israel related content and would like me to write a review, contact me for details of where to send me a review copy of the book.

Book Review: The Rarest Blue, by Baruch Sterman with Judy Taubes Sterman

When I first picked up this book, I did so almost in trepidation. I wear techelet, or tekhelet as they spell it, strings in my tzitzis, and when I first had decided to wear them I read through all the articles available, including the relevant halachos. At the time I felt comfortable saying that I was familiar enough with the relevant material and was making an informed decision. Many years later, years of wearing tekhelt, I admit I have not kept up with the latest writings, findings, and arguments on the issue of the discovery of the murex as the source of tekhelet, of the dyeing process, and on the debate of reviving a lost tradition. Today I am far less familiar with the arguments in favor of, or against, the modern-day tekhelet.

So, when I first picked up the book, I did so with trepidation. Not because I thought that the book might suddenly convince me I was wrong all these years - after all, even if I was wrong, the worst thing I did was wear tzitzis with some blue in it and nothing bad happened. My trepidation was out of fear that I would have no idea what the book was talking about. I was afraid the book would be full of scientific equations and proofs, I would not understand a word, and I would have a very difficult time reading it.

Boy, was I wrong!

From page 1, the book was almost un-put-down-able. Yes, I made up that word, but it is very appropriate.

The Rarest Blue is a page-turner. The book opens by drawing the reader in along an adventure to find the murex snail. You follow the author and his fellow adventurers through his travails along the coastal towns and villages along the Mediterranean, exploring ancient dyeing processes and finding ways to replicate them, and improve on them, in today's day and age, exploring ancient texts and historical references to the colors blue and purple, discovering how such colors were used and perceived in clothing and society in ancient history. The author goes through the history of previous discoveries of tekhelet, and the great halachic debates that surrounded those discoveries. You will even analyze what the color blue is, how it is seen by the eye, and how rare it is in nature (I found this discussion in particular to be truly fascinating).

All that might sound boring, but the author, in his writing style, found a way to make it all captivating and make you feel as if you are part of the adventure, as if you are there alongside him making the discoveries.

I would never have thought ancient dyeing processes could be so fascinating, and I am sure in real life they are far more dull and tedious than the description of their discovery in the book.

This book is not part of the argument, or debate, of whether the murex is the actual source of the tekhelet. This book, The Rarest Blue, seems to be taking place after that fact is already accepted. The murex, according to the author (and I, along with thousands of others, have at least accepted that argument), is the source of tekhelet. Once that is accepted, this book takes its relevancy - in finding the supply of murex, discovering how to extract the dye, how to process it, and what the meaning behind it all is.

Whether you wear tekhelet or not, whether you accept the argument that the murex is the correct source or not, this book is one you should definitely read. It tells the fascinating tale of the [attempted, for those of you who do not accept the argument] rediscovery of an ancient tradition.

Buy The Rarest Blue. You won't be sorry.

NOTE: I was not paid to review this book. It is an unbiased and objective review. If you have a book with Jewish or Israel related content and would like me to write a review, contact me for details of where to send me a review copy of the book.

Yesterday morning I went on an adventure. I took the morning off to join my friends Victor Ofstein and Rabbi Natan Slifkin, the Zoo Rabbi and author of Rationalist Judaism, for a trip to Chof Dor to search for the murex trunculus snail, recognized by some (many?) as being the source for the techelet.

I have not gone over the material of, both for and against, the murex in a number of years, so I would not say I remember all the arguments, but when I did research it, and spoke to a number of rabbis, I was convinced that there is at least a very good chance of this being the correct species, and more likely it is. So, I chose to wear techelet in my tzitzis.

I have been to the techelet factory and taken the tour, seen how they produce it, a number of years ago. Ptil Tekhelet, the manufacturers of the techelet (or as they spell it "tekhelet"), also run a snorkeling tour at Chof Dor, the beach where the murex trunculus can be found. I never got around to going snorkeling for the murex. So, when they invited me to join them for the morning trip, I decided to go for it. Though this trip was not going to be snorkeling with Ptil Tekhelet, but we were going to go snorkeling by the beach on our own.

Chof Dor is a beach in the vicinity of the town Zichron Yaakov. The beach is beautiful, with soft sand and rocky reefs.

I have never been snorkeling before, so it took a few minutes to get used to it, and a few tries to get it right. I now kind of get the idea what waterboarding is like. It was not pleasant getting either a noseful of sea water, or a mouthful of sea water. The initial snorkeling experience was tough, as i found ti difficult to force myself to breathe only through my mouth. When I caught myself trying to breathe through my nose, and getting no air, I would force myself to breathe out through the snorkel, and then I would be able to breathe in. I got used to it after a few minutes and settled in to the snorkeling experience.

The Murex Trunculus

The rocks of the reef (I am not sure of it was coral) were very sharp, and I got a few cuts from them. It was time to snorkel! I found a murex snail fairly quickly, only to discover that it was just the shell, and a hermit crab had moved in and taken up residence within. There was no snail. We continued snorkeling, moving around to different sections of the beach, along different sides of the reef, and found a few more murex shells, and a lot of other snails, both shells and actual snails. Along the way we saw fish, and underwater flora. It was really a cool experience.

We decided to go back to the other side of the reef, as we had found a few murex shells there but nothing significant where we had moved to. This time we struck gold, as along with a few more shells, this time Rabbi Slifkin had the fortune of finding a couple live murex trunculus snails as well. Sure enough, just then the waves started bringing in small jellyfish, and one of us got stung. It was time to go anyway, so we called it a day.

We got our stuff and headed into the kibbutz of Nachsholim which is adjacent to the beach, and found some people who were nice enough to bring us some vinegar to apply to the sting.

Some additional highlights were finding the rotting carcass of a large sea turtle. This was interesting until the top was moved, exposing the rot and creating a horrible stench of rotten carcass. Another highlight was chatting with the elderly lady from the kibbutz who brought us the vinegar. She moved to Israel 49 years ago (I don't remember from where), straight to this kibbutz, and seemed to be a special character.

The New York Times has an article on the resurgence of the t'chelet (also sometimes spelled t'khelet and sometimes tekhelet).

The New Yorks Times:

One of the mysteries that scholars have puzzled over for centuries is the exact shade of blue represented by “tekhelet,” which the Bible mentions as the color of ceremonial robes donned by high priests and ritual prayer tassels worn by the common Israelite.


Though scientists and scholars are still debating the exact shade of the ritual blue, the dye used is modeled after a 2,000-year-old textile, above, and is produced from sea snails found in Israeli waters.
What was known about tekhelet (pronounced t-CHELL-et) was that the Talmud said it was produced from the secretion of the sea snail, which is still found on Israeli beaches.


Traditional interpretations have characterized tekhelet as a pure blue, symbolic of the heavens so that Jews would remember God. Not so, according to an Israeli scholar who has a new analysis: tekhelet appears to have been closer to a bluish purple.


The scholar, Zvi C. Koren, a professor specializing in the analytical chemistry of ancient colorants, says he has identified the first known physical sample of tekhelet in a tiny, 2,000-year-old patch of dyed fabric recovered from Masada, King Herod’s Judean Desert fortress, later the site of a mass suicide by Jewish zealots after a long standoff against the Romans.


“It really is majestic,” Dr. Koren said of the shade, which he said remained close to its original hue and appeared to be indigo.


Dr. Koren is scheduled to deliver a paper on Monday at a conference here at Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, where he heads the Edelstein Center for Analysis of Ancient Artifacts.


Dr. Koren, originally from Staten Island, described his work as “Indiana Jones meets C.S.I.” He said that when he first photographed the fabric scrap with the tekhelet dye, “the L.C.D. on my camera literally radiated.”


Until now, the limited number of blue or purple dyes found on textiles from the period in this region have been derived from plant material, he said.


The fabric he examined was one of many items discovered at Masada in the 1960s and stored at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. It came to his attention when a British historian, Hero Granger-Taylor, who specializes in ancient weaves, asked him to analyze some textiles. Dr. Koren said he was the first researcher to make the connection between the fabric and the snail dye.


He found that the dye used in the Masada sample, a piece of bluish-purple yarn embroidery, came from a breed of Murex trunculus snail familiar to modern Israelis. Such shades on textiles are rare finds since they were typically worn exclusively by royalty or nobility.


Determining what exactly tekhelet would have looked like in its day has been the subject of conjecture and curiosity among rabbis, religious commentators and scientists for centuries; it is considered the most important of the three ritual colors cited in the Bible. The other two are argaman, a reddish purple, and shani, known as scarlet.


“It’s especially exciting for religious Jews who place great importance on this color,” said Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer, a University of Haifa archaeologist specializing in mollusk shells.


Some time after the Jews were exiled from Israel in A.D. 70, the knowledge of how to produce the tekhelet dye was lost. The dye was also prohibitively expensive to make: hundreds of snails were used to make even a small batch, and some in ancient times claimed it was worth 20 times its weight in gold.


The question of tekhelet’s appearance was later taken up by rabbinic scholars who had never seen it. Most of them settled on some form of blue, comparing it at various times to the color of the sea, the sky and sapphires.


Adding to the confusion, two of the most important Jewish authorities offered conflicting opinions: Maimonides, considered perhaps the greatest Jewish legal authority, said it resembled the color of the sky on a sunny day. But Rashi, another celebrated Middle Ages commentator, gave two different accounts: one, that it was green, and the other that it resembled a darkening evening sky.


In modern Hebrew, “tekhelet” is the word for light blue, mirroring the consensus of scholars that the ancient color was most likely sky blue. The blue of the Israeli flag was inspired by tekhelet.


Because the textile from Masada was locally made from snails, and bluish, Dr. Koren concluded that it represented the first modern-day encounter with the authentic biblical tekhelet.


Even though it is not cerulean, Dr. Koren said, the traditional notion of tekhelet — meant to serve as a reminder of the heavens — still fits.


“Tekhelet is the color of the sky,” Dr. Koren said in his laboratory. “It’s not the color of the sky as we know it; it’s the color of sky at midnight.” He paused and added, “It’s when you are all alone at night that you reach out to God, and that is what tekhelet reminds you of.”


Twenty years ago, a nonprofit organization, P’til Tekhelet, which means “tekhelet string,” was formed to raise awareness of the color. Volunteer divers collect ink from snails off the coast of Israel and produce sky-blue tekhelet to dye string that is woven into the ritual prayer tassels known as tzitzit, hoping to reclaim an ancient tradition.


Baruch Sterman, a P’til Tekhelet founder, said that new scientific findings were unlikely to change the tradition his group had reintroduced: using the sky-blue color for ritual tassels.


“Probably in ancient times, what was most important to the Jews was that the color is a beautiful color and it comes from the snail,” Mr. Sterman said. “The minor distinction — sky blue, turquoise, lapis or purple blue — were probably not of significance to them.”


Yuval Sherlow, a prominent rabbi in Israel’s modern Orthodox circles — where wearing tekhelet in ritual fringes has become increasingly popular, as it has in American ones — agreed.


“Tradition is not so interested in science,” Mr. Sherlow said. “There is a type of denial of science and new information.”

Check out this article from Rav Dovid Bar Hayyim on why Tekhelet is not more widespread....