Community Magazine April 2014

32 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE THE POSSIBLE RESTORATION OF A LOST MITZVAH BARUCH AND JUDY STERMAN Today we live in a world of endless and vibrant color. Glittering neon lights, LEDs, paints, cosmetics, HD computer screens – they all bombard us with eye-popping shades wherever we turn. We take this all for granted, but in the ancient world, such multicolored richness did not exist. Clothes and fabrics were muted and drab, and the few dyed materials that were available were earth tones – reds, browns and ochres. That is, until it was discovered that certain shellfish, under certain conditions, could produce vibrant blue and purple hues and, more importantly, in a dye form of the most excellent, enduring quality. A Mad Lust for Purple Techelet , as it was known in the ancient Near East, was the wildly popular and precious sky-blue dye derived from a most unlikely source – the digestive gland of a tiny sea-snail. It dominated the market in ancient times, drove the Mediterranean economy, and won the hearts of everyone who came in contact with it. First discovered by the resourceful Minoans, these dyes were the cornerstone commodity of the seafaring Phoenicians, and revered by emperors and empresses, kings and princes throughout the world. In Greek and Roman society, the sumptuous purple and blue-dyed wool were the height of fashion and the ultimate status symbol, fetching up to 20 times their weight in gold. In a world where fabric had been dull and monochromatic, it is no wonder that when these vivid colors were discovered, there was, in the words of the Greek scientist Pliny the Elder, “a mad lust for purple.” To the Jewish people, techelet was Gd’s chosen color; it comprised the Temple’s curtains, drapery, and decorative coverings, as well as the elegant clothes worn by the kohanim who served there. Moreover, the Torah calls upon the entire community to join the religious aristocracy by commanding each and every Jew to wear a single thread of techelet on the corner hem of his garment – the tzitzit – so that he may “look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them” (Bamidbar 15:39). By attaching a bit of the sacred, the techelet thread, to his everyday clothes, each individual aspires to holiness. Surprisingly, however, due to the shifting of power and the turmoil of conquest, by the seventh century the once burgeoning techelet industry had disappeared, and the secrets of the wondrous sea-creature, known as the hilazon , that produced it, along with the closely guarded process for preparing the dye, slipped into obscurity. There they remained for over 1300 years until a chance encounter between a French zoologist and a Minorcan fisherman put scholars on track to recover the ancient knowledge. Lessons From a Fisherman The young zoologist, Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers, set sail from Minorca in Spain’s Balearic Islands in 1858 to study marine life in the Mediterranean. Aboard his boat, he watched a fisherman break open the shell of an ordinary-looking snail and smear his shirt with its slimy contents. Yellowish stains streaked the shirt. But as the zoologist watched, the yellow streaks slowly changed color, turning first to green, then gradually, miraculously, becoming a beautiful, brilliant purple – a purple not seen since antiquity. Lacaze-Duthiers realized that the sailor’s shell must be the same type as those once used for dyeing, as described by Aristotle and Pliny. He devoted years of research and experimentation to the study of these snails as well as the dyes they produced. In recognition of his contribution, he received the prestigious position of chair of the Natural History of Mollusks, Worms, and Zoophytes at France’s National Museum of Natural History, eventually becoming a professor at the University of Paris.