Fringe Movement: A Biblical Blue Makes a Comeback (The Forward)
A Dye Born in the Glands of a Snail Colors the Corners of Prayer Shawls
By CHANA POLLACK
The color purple � well, something related to it � is making a comeback, but its significance goes far beyond the favor of frum fashionistas.
� newly recovered biblical process of extracting the purplish blue dye from a Mediterranean mollusk is changing the way the commandment to wear tzitzit � the ritual fringes worn on the four-cornered prayer shawls � is being observed by some Modern Orthodox Jews and chasidim.
After a millennium and a half, it is now once again possible to include a blue (tekhelet) thread among one's fringes, in accordance with God's instructions to Moses in Numbers 15:38-39:
Speak to the Israelite people and instruct them to make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the ages; let them attach a cord of tekhelet [blue] to the fringe at each corner. That shall be your fringe; look at it and recall all the commandments of the Lord and observe them.
How could a low-lying mollusk become the harbinger of innovation? In the biblical era, tzitzit fringes had one component dyed the color tekhelet. Associated in ancient times with royalty and the priestly caste, tekhelet was one of the few permanent dyes of the biblical era, made from a glandular secretion of the Murex snail called dibromoindirubin, which, after five to 10 minutes of exposure to air and sunlight, turns what's called "biblical blue."
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The dye's revival is due in large part to the initiative and imagination � not to mention networking prowess � of several young Modern Orthodox professionals now living in Israel, mostly graduates of Yeshiva University's science departments. Tekhelet has gained a following numbering in the thousands and the support of a diverse group of religious scholars, scientists and a few deep-sea-diving Croatian fishermen, looking to enhance their local economy.
Dr. Ari Greenspan is a resident of Efrat with a thriving dental practice in nearby Jerusalem and one of the founders of P'til Tekhelet Foundation (www.tekhelet.com), which seeks to promote and distribute tekhelet. He told the Forward that his interest in tekhelet emerged from the desire to meld his creative urges with his interest in hidur mitzvah, or beautifying the ritual practice. Greenspan, an energetic 40-year-old who immigrated to Israel in 1988 from New Jersey, drew a particular pleasure from applying his manual dexterity to the fulfillment of Jewish law.
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After hearing about [Rabbi Eliyahu] Tevger's deep-sea dives along the northern Achziv coastal region in Israel, Greenspan grew excited. In no time, he found himself on a self-described "whim," facedown and up to his elbows in the Mediterranean, searching for the mollusk alongside Tevger and physicist Baruch Sterman.
"To make a long story short," Greenspan said, "we found something." Using earlier historical research as their point of departure, Greenspan and a team of roughly a dozen confirmed that this was the same species of snail from which the original tekhelet dye had been made in biblical times.
Tracing the biological research of medieval dyers and talmudic celebrities such as Pliny the Elder, they were able to produce within a year "the first historical blue dye from the snail in over 1,500 years," Greenspan said.
Today, tekhelet is created by extracting a yellowish "juice" from the Murex snail, which the foundation fishes in Europe. It takes about 10 to 30 snails to make enough dye for one set of tzitzit. The remaining snail parts are given to the local population gratis, to eat.
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Objections to tekhelet fringes tend to fault the foundation's historical research for incorrectly tying tekhelet to the Murex snail. A 2001 article published in the Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society and posted on the www.chilazon.com, says that the Murex-produced tekhelet does not meet the standards set out in the Gemara and faults the foundation's research as "inconclusive."
For his part, Greenspan is quick to note that as a Modern Orthodox Jew, he is "unencumbered by the same fear of integrating the old and the new."
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There's more at the P'til Tekhelet Foundation website.
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