[Avodah] Color names

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

RZLampel and I discused this once, I think here. If not, the topic could
be of interest anyway. So, rather than checking the archive (which is
difficult, given the number of tekheiles discussions) I am just sharing
either way.

-micha

Shabbat B'Shabbato
Translated by Moshe Goldberg
Machon Zomet

...
What Is That Phrase?
Green Sky?
Yaacov Etzion

At the end of this week's Torah portion, we are given a command, "Let them
place on the tzitzit at the corner a thread of 'techelet.'" [Bamidbar
15:38]. Rashi explains that techelet is "the 'yarok' color of a
snail." Any speaker of modern Hebrew can only wonder at this. Why does
Rashi call the blue color of techelet "yarok" -- that is, green?

Well, it is not only Rashi that calls techelet "yarok." It is an
explicit ruling that appears in the Shulchan Aruch: "The color white
is ritually pure, as is the look of 'yarok,' even if it has the look
of wax or of gold. And this certainly includes the 'yarok' of leek or
grass (and also the color that is called 'blue' is included in 'yarok')"
[Hilchot Nidda, 188].

We are not interested at this point in the details of the halacha but
rather in the fact that the RAMA writes that the color "blue" is called
"yarok" in our traditional sources.

Our sages spoke of four main colors: shachor (black), lavan (white),
adom (red), and yarok. And "yarok" included yellow, orange, blue, and
turquoise of today. For example, it happens quite often that a newborn
baby is a bit yellow right after its birth. But the Tosefta calls this
color "yarok." Rabbi Natan says the following: "When I was in the Land
of Kapotakia, there was a woman who had given birth to boys... They
brought him to me, and I saw that he was 'yarok'... I looked at him and
did not find any blood for circumcision..." [Shabbat 134a]. Moreover,
in the wording of the ROSH in his halachic rulings the word yarok as used
by the sages is not our color green (which they call "yarok as a leek")
but is yellow or orange. "This shows that the word yarok is similar to
the yolk of an egg or to gold, which has a tinge of red." Among other
sources, the ROSH bases his decision on the words of the verse, "the
wings of a dove coated with silver and its limbs the 'yerakrak' of gold"
[Tehillim 68:14]. Yerakrak is clearly the color of gold, that is, yellow.

The words for orange (katom) and blue (kachol) were instituted in modern
times by Zeev Yavetz. This was reported by David Yalin in the newspaper
"Hatzevi" in 1887: "When I spoke to my uncle the illustrious rabbi and
investigator Rabbi Zeev Yavetz, he said to me that he wants to fill
what is missing in our language for the names of two colors, the color
of techelet and the color of the yoke of an egg." Yavetz proposed that
techelet should be called kachol and that the yoke should be called
"ketem," which in the holy writings refers to gold or to the color of
gold. (An example appears in the following verse: "Woe, the gold is dim,
the good 'ketem' has changed" [Eichah 4:1].) Yavetz wanted to use the
word katom for the color of yellow (which we call tzahov), since he
felt that tzahov "includes a bit of red" (as per a note by Yalin). But
as time went on, katom became the color orange, as we use it today.

Thus, the word "yarok" changed in meaning during the years, as did
"tzahov." However, "techelet" evidently kept its original meaning,
and it remains similar to the color of the sea, which is similar to the
color of the sky, and this reminds us of the Divine Throne of Glory.