Blue Fringes Discussion Forum

Rhecht, when I said it has nothing to do with techeiles, I was reffering to @Nosson's proof from the mounds of shells, that this is techeiles. I pointed out the obvious, that these mounds have nothing to do with techeiles. The proof is from the fact that there were millions of shells from 2 other murex species as well, so these  were obviously affiliated with the tyrian purple industry and had nothing to do with techeiles.

Your other proof, (which has nothing to do with the shells), is an anachronism. You are assuming that if today people use the murex as techeiles, they must have done so then as well, so Chazal should have needed to warn you from not using it.
in reality, there is no reason to assume anybody dreamed of using it for techeiles. Assuming techeiles was well known, what is there to gain by using expensive purple shellfish and turning it into fake techeiles? This was not the color it was used for, and it was prohibitively expensive.
Chazal warned from what was being used- indigo. And they mention that it is only kosher from a chilazon, as opposed to from indigo. It is obvious that this is what they were coming to exclude. To try to prove from the Tosefta something about other snails that were not on the radar, is to take the Tosefta completely out of context.
 
 
 
 
 

Doorknob wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:08 am Rhecht, when I said it has nothing to do with techeiles, I was reffering to @Nosson's proof from the mounds of shells, that this is techeiles. I pointed out the obvious, that these mounds have nothing to do with techeiles. The proof is from the fact that there were millions of shells from 2 other murex species as well, so these  were obviously affiliated with the tyrian purple industry and had nothing to do with techeiles.

Your other proof, (which has nothing to do with the shells), is an anachronism. You are assuming that if today people use the murex as techeiles, they must have done so then as well, so Chazal should have needed to warn you from not using it.
in reality, there is no reason to assume anybody dreamed of using it for techeiles. Assuming techeiles was well known, what is there to gain by using expensive purple shellfish and turning it into fake techeiles? This was not the color it was used for, and it was prohibitively expensive.
Chazal warned from what was being used- indigo. And they mention that it is only kosher from a chilazon, as opposed to from indigo. It is obvious that this is what they were coming to exclude. To try to prove from the Tosefta something about other snails that were not on the radar, is to take the Tosefta completely out of context.
 
 
 
 
 

 

A few points:

1. Murex trunculus was proposed by Rabbi Isaac Herzog aside from the Janthina. The irony is that he likely never dyed from it but did tremendous theoretical research based on sources he was told. He got the notion that Murex Trunculus turns blue thanks to Bartolomeo Bizio who wrote such in 1833. Otherwise, everyone is right: he likely wouldn't have brought it up as a candidate in the first place if he believed that it only produced purple. Yet at the same time that's what colleagues like Paul Friedlander were telling him so he weighed that evenly as well. If anyone has lots of free time they may go through the entire doctorate, in English or Hebrew, here: https://porphyrology.com/view-doctorate/
2. The reality is that blue and blue-purple, with every shade in between, is made from the murex trunculus. Attached is what I last produced, in the dark, with one half being boiled 3 times using regular urn water, at a max temp of 95C (which likely didn't reach that since it stayed in a paper cup).
3. Why someone would use something expensive to make a cheap color is anyones guess, but we know that the main color needs to be blue, and we also know that it was expensive as the Gemara spells out. In terms of the sky blue color:

a) We also know that woad was another form of Kala Ilan, was indigenous to Israel, and was a much weaker dye than India indigo which needed to be imported. And not only was there no DHL back then, but international Customs was a lot more restrictive compared to today
b) We also know that Yochanan ben Dehovai allowed for Mareh Sheni dipping (which Ptil as a rule does NOT do even though Tosafos allows even 100 dips as long as the color quality doesn't diminish), which as we know today provides a pure blue.  The fact is, many of our Rishonim and Acharonim were all able to carry parts of a lost Mesorah in terms of the creature (too many wrote that the "Dag" is a snail to ignore), and the color. And to a degree the process is hinted by Chazal and our Rishonim. Whether or not they saw Techeiles when Techeiles got lost is open to conjecture, but the fact is that Jews didn't have access to it for a long while. B"H a valid process has been reconstructed that's been approved by enough mainstream Gedolim of whom we can rely on.