Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue is considered one of the greatest and most influential recordings of all time. What made it so special, beside the superb musicianship, is that Davis emphasized modes, rather than chords, as the basic framework of the music. The creation and elaboration of the mode (the blue of the album’s name) is considered a masterpiece of jazz.
We, too, have our own kind of blue, a masterpiece of a different sort, a definite mood-setter. It is described in the third paragraph of the Shema, where we are told that the fringes of our tallit, the tzitzit, should have a strand of techelet. Techelet is an extremely precious dye, with a color ranging from sky-blue through indigo to blue-purple.
So immediately three questions arise: 1) why was it so important to include a techelet strand in the tzitzit? 2) If it was so important, why don’t most tallitot have them today? 3) Why are there some tallitot that do have them?
The answers to these questions take us on a journey through theology, history, and science. Why techelet? Well, in ancient days techelet was known as “royal blue” for a reason, it was so super expensive and rare that only nobility could afford a garment made of it. When G-d commanded that every person wearing a tallit should have a strand of techelet, He was asserting the fundamentally democratic nature of the Jewish people. We are all created in the image of the King of the King of Kings. We are all royalty.
Which leads to the second question. Why did we stop wearing it? Because the Roman nobility were extremely exclusive and protective of their status. If everyone were royalty, then no one was—and this was intolerable to the ruling class. So they forbade Jews from wearing techelet, not even one single strand. The demand for techelet was interrupted, the Temple was destroyed and Jewish society shattered, and the complex art of making the techelet (more on that below) was lost.
But now, as you might have noticed, techelet strands have become more common. Through remarkable detective work, rabbis and archeologists were able to identify the animal from which this precious dye was made (it’s a kind of mollusk, called a murex trunculus), and through a combination of brilliance and pure luck, chemists and other scientists were able to use the pigment filled tube on the back of the mollusk to synthesize techelet.
So today techelet is making a return. It’s still expensive (about $120 for a set with the one strand) but it represents such a noble idea, literally, that it’s worth it. And, if I can admit my own pettiness, it is delicious revenge on the Romans. They are gone, and we are here—Jewish nobles every one.
Rabbi Robert L. Wolkoff