30 Rev. Isaac Herzog on 



The parallel passages in Chronicles refer to tekelet and argaman, 

 bat in very general terms. 



Ezekiel's sketch of the Future Temple contains no allusion 

 to tekelet and argaman. 



In the Second Temple tekelet and argaman were, we know, 

 used not only for the High Priest's garments, in accordance with 

 Pentateuchal prescriptions, but also for the thirteen veils hung at 

 the gates. 



The ritual use of tekelet for the sisit or the fringes survived 

 the Temple by several centuries. 



The law of sisit (the fringes) occurs twice in the Pentateuch 

 Numbers XV, 37-41, and Deuteronomy XXII, 12. 



The symbolic significance of tekelet is, I think, quite clear 

 from the text of the Pentateuch itself. The tekelet resembling 

 the sky-colour is to remind one of heaven, and so raise his feelings 

 and thoughts to higher planes. This is, in fact, the traditional 

 view of the significance of tekelet. 



Though the rite of sisit is still observed, to some extent, by 

 professedly orthodox Jews, and in a small measure even by 

 reformers, tekelet has long ceased to form part of the sisit. 



The Total Extinction of Tekelet. 



Tradition singles out the territory of Zebulun, which, as we 

 know, adjoined Phoenicia, as the centre of purple manufacture 

 in Palestine. 



This is significant in view of what we otherwise know of 

 Phoenicia as a principal centre of the purple industry. A 

 Talmudic tradition states in connection with Jeremiah, LII, 16 

 that Nebuzradan left some of the poorest people of the land to 

 engage in the fishing of the purple-snails on the coast extending 

 from the ladder of Tyre to Haifa. . This would point to that 

 stretch of territory as the home of Jewish purple-manufacture in 

 ancient Palestine. The Hittite City Luz (Judges I, 26) is referred 

 to in the Talmud as pre-eminent in the manufacture of tekelet. 

 The reference may well be to a city in the vicinity of the Syrian 



