I wear wool, round neck, Sefardic tzitzit. I have a pair with techelet. My Tallit also has techelet (of the Murex of course). IM looking to buy a tallit and tzitzit with Rambam style strings.
I would suggest the Raavad strings instead.
No offense to the Rambam but the Raavad's opinion is more solidly founded.
Why? and the techelet should be Murex, radzin, or Rav Herzog's?
The reason that I say that the Raavad's opinion is more solidly founded is for a few reasons.
1) The Raavad's tying created a true indivisible Gidheel. The Rambam's creates seven seperate rings of wrapping which while it looks quite pretty, it is not much of a Gidheel.
2) The Raavad's tying can be one third of any length strings, The Rambam's is very limited.
3) The Rambam's tying assumes that all the wrappings except for the first and last should be Tekheleth. This is hard to reconcile with the halakha that states that a normal beged should start with Lavan and end with Lavan and a garment made of Tekheleth should start with tekheleth and end with tekheleth. This eventuality makes very little sense and you would have no idea what to do with the rambam's shita in this instance. Do you flip the colors and have all of the wrappings Lavan except for the first and last?
That makes no sense or do you just make all wrappings Tekheleth which makes no sense in context because the Talmudh is clearly talking about using both colors just starting with aone and ending with the same one.
4) the Rambam's opinion that you dye half a string Tekheleth looks nice but Ptheel Tekheleth seems to imply a whole string not half.
There are more reasons but I would have to learn the Talmudh with you in person to tell you all of them.
All which I have said is based on the opinion of Rav Bar Hayim, but I have a different opinion that I think the opinion of Rav Amram Gaon is the most Mekori. I have started to see Rav Bar hayim's side more favorably recently although my Taanoth in favor of Rav amram gaon's style has not yet been answered. I sent him an email detailing my ideas on the subject.
Here they are for your enjoyment:
I do have some questions about your choice of the Raavad's shita as what the Talmudh is saying. The problem is when Rava says, refering to the statement of "Sisith, Gardumaw Ksherim" "We see from here that one must tie after each Huliah." The idea is that although it is theoretically possible not to tie after each huliah, one should.
The problem with the Raavad's shita is that the reason for tying on each huliah for the Raavad is the need for differentiating between each huliah. If you didn't tie between each huliah, you would go over the 13 krikhoth limit because it would all be one huliah.
The stated reason, I believe, for tying after each huliah is so that if one unravels, the rest of the G'dhil will remain. The Raavad needs it to tie anyway to differentiate between the hulioth. Which is something that Rav Amram Gaon's shita doesn't need to do because of the different colors of the three krikhoth hulioth.
It seems to me that Rav Amram's shita fits in more nicely to the Talmudh because of the idea of tying the white first because " Al Kanaf, Min Kanaf". The idea that we should start with white to start because it is on the kanaf and should be the same color as the Kanaf.
If the idea of starting with white refers to each huliah like the Raavad and not the whole g'dhil as Rav Amram holds, what possible reason could one give for starting the second or third or fourth huliah with white? It is not on the Kanaf.
As far as the idea that any shita must adaptable to any length of Sisith strings and be able to maintain shlish g'dhil and shnei shlish anaf. I just don't see why that has to be the case. When it says, "Noie Tekheleth shlish g'dhil and shnei shlish anaf". Maybe that just means that this is the way it should be, but if you make the strings so long that it is not possible, that is your loss. Doesn't it seem to be inferring an ideal Sisith arrangement? I just don't see why non-adaptability to any length strings is a sign of incongruence with the Talmudh.
As for the Tekheleth Question.
Murex is obviously the True Tekheleth.
Radzin tekheleth Sepia washes out in the laundry. It is quite a stretch to assume that a dye that washes out in a few washes was once worth it's weight in Gold. so Radzin is obviously not Tekheleth.
Rav Herzog's Janthina is also not possible. Because no one has ever been able to produce one string of Tekheleth dyed with Janthina.
Also neither Sepia not Janthina shells were ever found buried by the millions or even at all in the Ancient Dye factories of Lebanon and Haifa.
Murex was.
Buying any Tekheleth that is not Murex is a waste of time and money.
Topic: Tzitzit and Tallit (Read 7436 times)