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Spirituality

Diane D'Agostini

Strength on the Bench

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Rabbi Jay Strear
shares his
fascination
with a
1,000-year-old
mystery.

SHARON LUCKERMAN
Editorial Assistant

H

ave you ever wondered about the origins of the
special blue dye used in biblical times for tzitzit,
the fringes of the four-cornered garment (tallit)
that Jews use at prayer?
While attending rabbinical school in Israel, Rabbi Jay
Strear of Adat Shalom Synagogue became fascinated with
the lost dye that was used for the tzitzit. He hopes to
inform the Jewish community about the mystery and con-
troversy surrounding the subject.
"We're told about this special color worn on the corner
of your garment in the Book of Numbers," he says. But
more than a thousand years ago, the dye used for blue — a
color reserved for royalty not only by the Jews but also by
the Greeks and Romans — was lost, along with directions
for how to make it.
By 750 C.E., the Midrash Tanhuma laments, "We have
no techelet, only white." The Oxford English-Hebrew
Dictionary (1994) defines t'chelet as an azure, light blue.
For centuries, the non-Jewish world sought to rediscover
how to make the blue, and purple, of royalty. In the 1860s,
Jews picked up the quest. Rabbi Geron Hanock Leiner,
from a small town in Poland, experimented for years with
organic dyes used for coloring clothes. He finally theorized
that the ancient color was made from the black ink of cud-
dlefish, a type of tiny octopus.
Another theory advanced in the 1920s added to the con-
troversy. Rabbi Yizchak Herzog, who believed the Polish
rabbi's work was not scientifically sound, claimed that the
special blue color came from a mollusk commonly found in
the Mediterranean Sea.
Twenty years ago, Professor Otto Elsner of Shenkar
College of Fibers in Israel, decided to test the theory pro-

posed by Rabbi
Herzog. He could-
n't accurately
reproduce Rabbi
Herzog's methods
until an important
accident occurred.
Elsner left a vial of
the mucous from a
mollusk in sun-
light. When Elsner
discovered it later,
the substance had
turned blue, the
very color, he
believes, of the spe
cial blue dye.
Today, farms in
Gibraltar harvest
the mollusks and
send them to Israel
where they are
processed to make
blue dye for tzitzit.
But not all rabbis agree that this is the authentic blue
of the Bible. A few Chasidic rabbis say the Polish rabbi's
discovery of the source of the original color was correct
and use a different blue dye. However, according to
Rabbi Elimelech Silberberg of Sara Tugman Bais Chabad
Torah Center, most Chasidim continue to wear tallit
with white tzitzit.
"I take a neutral position," says Rabbi Strear. "My inten-
tion is to introduce people to this fascinating area of study."
Which color blue is his tzitzit?
He chuckles, but says he won't tell. Cl

David Tisdale
Michael Alan Schwartz
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Dana Baskin
Yolanda Tisdale
Judge Gene Schnelz
Steven M. Kaplan
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Brett Chudler
Neil Colman
David J. Knoll
John I. Kittel
Alvin Levine
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Allan H.'ruslunan
Judith Wiser
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Howard Arnkoff
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Senator David Honigman
Todd D. Barry
Thomas Boylan
Barrie R. Bratt
Eliot Charlip
Matthew J. Chodak
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Marc J. Sussman
David J. Domstein
Matthew Feil
Joseph Horenstein
Bruce Jerris
Richard J. Levine
Joyce F. Todd
Peter B. Woll
Risa Tisdale VanDerAue
Arnold L. Weiner

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10/13

2000

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