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God commanded the Children of Israel to use techelet, the royal blue color, on one strand of the white fringes worn on tzitzit (four-cornered garments) and prayer shawls. But between 570 and 750 CE, when royal edicts by conquering nations declared the wearing of tzitzit illegal, the secret of techelet's procurement and production was gradually lost. The Midrash Tanhuma, written in 750 CE, laments, "And now we have no techelet -- only white." Although Jews continued to wear tzitzit through the centuries, the tradition of including the blue thread among the white fringes disappeared for 1,300 years.
A Jerusalem-based group established in 1980, Amutat P'til Techelet (the Association for the Promotion and Distribution of Techelet), claims to have solved the mystery of techelet and is producing the colored thread needed to fulfil the long-lost commandment.
Since the product gained the approval of several prominent rabbis in Israel, including the chief rabbi of Rehovot, Rabbi Simcha Kook, orders are pouring in from customers all over the world, at a rate of 300 per month.
The Talmud records that techelet comes from a snail, hilazon in Hebrew, whose home was said to be along the northern coastline of Israel, in the part of the country apportioned to the seafaring tribe of Zevulun. According to the Talmud, the tribe of Zevulun complained that their portion was hilly and unsuitable for agriculture, but God reassured them that everyone will come to them to buy the hilazon and blue techelet.
The search by Jewish scholars for the source of the true techelet was revived over 100 years ago. Archeologists, chemists, marine biologists, a great chassidic rabbi, the former chief rabbi of Israel, and some of the greatest rabbinical minds of our day have been involved in this quest.
The impetus for the rediscovery of techelet came in...