Community Magazine April 2014

34 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE Additional light on the matter was shed by retired engineer John Edmonds, a volunteer at a children’s museum outside London, who manned the woad dyeing station where he would demonstrate the process for preparing blue dye from plants. Joel Guberman, one of the founders of the Ptil Tekhelet organization, contacted John to ask if he might have some ideas on how snail dyeing was done in antiquity. The question piqued John’s curiosity, and he studied ancient texts and any sources he could find on the topic. He concluded that the key was ensuring that the bacteria feel “at home” on the snail meat, and their fermentation would put the dye into the necessary state. In a bizarre twist, it turned out that the bacteria which played the starring role in this drama were nasty little bugs from the same family as those which cause tetanus and botulism. The British Ministry of Defense funded Edmonds’ research in the hope that he might stumble across something that could benefit their biological warfare program. Nothing that nefarious came out of the research, but he did succeed in discovering the ancient techniques used for dyeing with murex. Techelet – A Symbol of Modern Jewish Rebirth In light of these recent discoveries, many individuals, most notably Rabbi Eliyahu Tevger, founder of Ptil Tekhelet, have worked to reinstate the lost mitzvah, and today tens of thousands of people once again wear threads of authentic, murex-dyed techelet on their tzitzit. This tale of loss, disappointment, determination, and, ultimately, rediscovery parallels in many ways the past thousand years of Jewish history. Techelet disappeared about the same time that Jewish life in Israel collapsed, and the Jewish people were compelled to forfeit an important national, religious and cultural symbol just as they had been forced to relinquish their land. For generations, Jews adapted to these two losses in the same manner – by relating to it as something to yearn for though compelled to live without. The story of techelet , so closely intertwined with Israel, unfolds in the reborn state whose very flag of blue and white derives from techelet . The return of the Jewish People to their land and the revival of the lost mitzvah of techelet both highlight how recent generations of Jews, at once heeding tradition while embracing modernity, have proudly and determinedly chosen to shape their people’s destiny. Opposing Views In light of the strong evidence pointing to the fact that the murex snail is the hilazon , many people, as mentioned, wear techelet strings on their tzitzit , using the dye of the murex. However, most people do not do so. This is because they feel that we are still missing something known as a mesorah – tradition – for this dye, and without a mesorah , there is always the possibility that we may be wrong in our understandings. When Mashiah comes, he will clarify this issue for us. We hope and pray that this will happen speedily and in our days, amen. Baruch Sterman is a co-founder of Ptil Techelet (www.techelet.com ), an Israeli non-profit organization that promotes, educates and produces authentic techelet. He received his doctorate in Physics and is a high-tech entrepreneur in Israel. Judy Taubes Sterman is the executive administrator of Ptil Techelet. Together they authored ‘The Rarest Blue’(winner of the Jewish Journal’s best book prize for 2013), which details the history and science of techelet. Dyeing according to the Talmud’s description in Menachot. Murex dyed tufts of wool, one dyed in darkness, the other exposed to sunlight. Removing the wool from the murex dye vat. Murex snails with tekhelet string.