[Avodah] colors in the gemara

[Micha Berger]

Back in 2005, in a thread by this name, I quoted the following from
RSRH (Collected Writings III pg 126):
    We find only three terms to encompass the colors of the spectrum:
    adom for red, yaroq for yellow and green, and techeiles for blue
    and violet....

    Red is the least refracted ray; it is the closest to the unbroken ray
    of light that is directly absorbed by matter. Red is light in its
    first fusion with the terrestrial element: adom, related to adamah
    Is this not again man, the image of G-d as reflected in physical,
    earthly matter: "vatichsareihu me'at mi'Elokim" (Tehillim. 8,6).

    The next part of the spectrum is yellow-green: yaroq.

    Blue-violet is at the end of the spectrum: techeiles.

    The spectrum visible to our eye ends with the violet ray, techeiles,
    but additional magnitudes of light radiate unseen beyond the visible
    spectrum. Likewise, the blue expanse of the sky forms the end of the
    earth that is visible to us. And so techeiles is simply the bridge
    that leads thinking man from the visible, physical sphere of the
    terrestrial world, into the unseen sphere of heaven beyond....

    Techeiles is the basic color of the sanctuary and of the High Priest's
    vestments; the color blue-violet representing heaven and the things
    of heaven that were revealed to Israel... no other color was as
    appropriate as techeiles to signify G-d's special relationship with
    Israel. A thread of techeiles color on our garments conferred upon
    all of us the insignia of our high-priestly calling, proclaiming all
    of us: "Anshei qodesh tihyun li -- And you shall be holy men to Me"
    (Ex. 19, 6).

    If we now turn our attention to the pisil techeiles on our tzitzith,
    we will not that it was precisely this thread of techeiles color that
    formed the krichos, the gidil, the thread wound around the other
    threads to make a cord. In other words, the vocation of the Jew,
    the Jewish awareness awakened by the Sanctuary, that power which
    is to prevail within us, must act to unite all our kindred forces
    within the bond of the Sanctuary of G-d's law.

In RSRH's opinion, tekheiles is a color name, but argamon and tola'as
shani are names of specific wools.

RMYG sent me a photo of some lines from Artscroll's Daily Dose of Torah
(many of whose authors are familiar names from Avodah), parashas Tzav,
Tuesday (brackets theirs, transliteration sometimes mine sometimes
theirs):
    [The Steipler mentioned that tekheiles, argoman and tolaas shani are
    also the names of colors, and not of materials. Thus, we may ask,
    how do we know that the bigdei Kehunah must be specifically with
    these color wools, and not of other materials? Rashah points out
    that Rashi (Yevamos 4b d"h uskheiles amra) answers this question;
    he explains that the two primary materials of which the Torah speaks
    (and the verses in Yechezkeil [44:17-18] tell us are included in the
    bigdei Kehunah) are wool and linen. Thus, after the Gemara establishes
    that sheis is linen, we may understand that the other three colors
    of tekheiles, argoman and tolaas shani are specifically dyed wool.]

Note the machloqes WRT two of those terms.

Switching from biblical to rabbinic Hebrew, R' Hertzog's thesis (pg
92) states:
    For practical purposes the Talmudists divided color into four classes:

    1. Shachor, black
    2. adom, red
    3. yarok, green yellow and blue
    4. lavan, white

And thus in leshon Chazal, tekheiles is a type of wool, not a color.

The Amutat P'til Tekhelet is chosheish for the possibility that tekheiles
is a term for a specific wool of a specific dye, and therefore dye the
wool before spinning it. This way, one has a pesil made of already existing
tekheiles, and one avoids problems of "'ta'aseh' -- velo min ha'asui".

Radziner dying is generally done after spinning.

This difference in dying becomes quite obvious if one is following
the Rambam, who holds that only one of the 8 string-ends is to be
techeiles. This means you have a string that is one side white, one
side blue, switching around where the string runs thought the hole in
the beged. In the Amutah's strings, you can see where the blue fibers
are spun into the white, and the two half-strings generally don't do
so exactly the same. On my 4 qanfos, there is a half-inch (maybe only
a third of an inch) candy-stripe where the two colors meet.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

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Micha Berger             Between stimulus & response, there is a space.
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