So do you wear tekhelet?

Absolutely.

Rabbi, before the diet were you also vegetarian? Forgive me, but eat well so that you’ll have strength for His service, may He be blessed and exalted.

If I may ask, by “vegetarian” do you mean to exclude something? And if so, why do you distinguish between them?

I didn’t understand.

I assumed you were being precise in your wording and wrote “vegetarian” to exclude “vegan.”
And if so, what do you eat such that you’re not called vegan? And secondly, why do you distinguish between these things? For example, if it stems from animal suffering, that exists here and there alike, and in some of the products vegetarians eat, as far as I know—like milk—the cows are still alive and suffering.

This has already come up here in the past. To my shame, I’m not strong enough to be vegan. (By the way, there are also people who do it for health reasons.)

No compassion for the poor snail?

The most loathsome creature is the one of whom it is said: “And if you despise My statutes” — one who despises others who act.

To Akavia — greetings,

I have no problem at all with tekhelet. I also eat meat. But someone who holds entire discussions about setting aside Jewish law because of “morality” should hold such discussions about tekhelet too. Especially since the identification is not one hundred percent certain.

Regards, Shatz

And another question: tekhelet alludes to the attribute of judgment. Someone who thinks that nowadays “there is no judgment” — why would he want tekhelet?

In puzzlement, Shatz

A lecturer in a logic course said that a double negative is an affirmative, but a double affirmative is not a negative. A listener answered and said: yeah, sure. And I too will follow in his footsteps and answer you: yeah, yeah.

Shatz and Tekhelet,
Are you sure this stupid question even needs an answer? Here, I’ll set you up for your next question: I also put on tefillin made of leather.
When there is a commandment in the Torah, that apparently overrides animal suffering; all the more so since I don’t know whether these snails actually suffer in the process (it is certainly worth checking in order to try to minimize it). But eating meat is not a commandment, and there is no reason not to refrain from it. Rabbi Kook was prepared to abolish the sacrifices in the future because of this (and even without animal suffering, just because of the very act of killing), so you can really ask him too about setting aside commandments because of animal suffering. The next time you meet him.

Akavia,
In the world of homiletics, we have a rule that a repeated inclusion comes to exclude, and a repeated exclusion comes to include.

With God’s help, 6 Tevet 5781

To the Rabbi Michael Abraham — greetings,

The Talmud (Sabbath 75a) asks why one who wounds a snail is liable under the category of threshing, and Rabbi Yohanan answers, “when he wounded it, it died.” But there is an opinion that even if he wounded it alive, “he is involved in taking a life,” because the one who wounds it prefers that the snail not die, so that its dye will be clear.

So perhaps it would be worthwhile to clarify how tekhelet is extracted from the snail today, because it would seem that the enhancement of having a clearer dye causes greater suffering to the snail, since the blood of a live snail is clearer. Perhaps it is better to be stringent about animal suffering and wound the snail after its death? *)

But perhaps nowadays one can fulfill the commandment of tekhelet even without a snail at all? For from Maimonides (Laws of Tzitzit 2) it seems that the definition of tekhelet is “a dye whose beauty endures,” one that does not fade. Seemingly, one could say that in the time of the Sages a durable dye could only be obtained through snail blood, but nowadays, when one can obtain a blue dye that keeps its beauty and does not fade even without a snail, why do we need to trap snails?

Especially since identifying the tekhelet snail with the murex does not straightforwardly fit the descriptions such as “it resembles the sea and its form resembles a fish,” and the like.

Regards, Shelatz [=Improving Dye Without Hunting]

*) Something like this happened with a boy who reached bar mitzvah age and refused to put on tefillin because of his opposition to killing animals. And a rabbi suggested (if I recall correctly: Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu) that they make tefillin for him from the hide of an animal that died a natural death.

Simply put, the snail is indispensable. And indeed, if we are talking about an enhancement of the commandment, that does not justify causing suffering. And in general it is proper to minimize suffering. But the comparison between eating meat and dyeing tzitzit with tekhelet is nonsense.
As for the story, it seems to me that I already brought here in the past a story about the son of friends of mine, who consulted me as well, and in the end, after a long and unsuccessful search process, he used his late grandfather’s tefillin. There’s a video about it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb6rR_hTZEs&t=216s

And what will the young man do with what is written in the tefillin: “Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord every male that opens the womb”? And with “if you do not redeem it, then you shall break its neck”? Who asked this of us—to be more compassionate than Abraham our father, who honored his guests with a tender and choice calf?

Regards, Ayn Ende Tzadik

How is it that someone who doesn’t move his well-padded backside even a hair’s breadth allows himself to sneer at others who do move, with whataboutism about other things they don’t do? Even if, hypothetically, there were no theoretical difference and there were a behavioral contradiction here, it would mean nothing; everyone moves according to his strength. All the more so when the contradictions are flimsy beyond flimsy, like a morning cloud.

With God’s help, 7 Tevet 5781

To the distinguished Rabbi, filled with God’s glory, whose mouth brings forth pearls, like celestial and earthly spheres, full of a praising tongue like Akavia, and whose inheritance is without bounds like Jacob—may God also grant him good and greatly increase his peace.

I will mention here a small remark about Jacob: it seems from the verses that he had a tendency toward vegetarianism. His forefathers (and he too) built altars, but Jacob introduced a path in the service of God, for in several places Jacob built a pillar and poured oil on its top.

Regarding the pillar, I saw something interesting in the commentary of Rabbi Ovadia Sforno on the commandment not to build a pillar: unlike an asherah, which is loathsome because it is the way of idolaters, the pillar was forbidden after the episode of the golden calf because the pillar is an elevated mode of serving God that is not fitting for Israel after they sinned.

And according to this, it is possible that in the future the mode of worship through a pillar—in which one offers from the plant world without slaughtering animals—will again become a fitting path in the service of God, as Rabbi Kook explained on the verse: “Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem shall be pleasing to the Lord.”

Regards, Yaron Fishel Ordner

Paragraph 3, line 3
… that the pillar is an elevated mode of serving God, which is not fitting for Israel after they sinned with the calf.