בס''ד

THE DAILY DAF MESSAGE OF THE BET ZVI DAFactory

Back to the Seventies?

Rashi quotes a Gemara in Menachos (44a) that one of the identifying characteristics of the true Chilazon is that it is a small fish that surfaces out of the sea every seventy years.

The Bnei Yisrael were in the desert for 40 years, and the Mishkan was built in the first year of their sojourn. Was it a mere 'coincidence' that the 70 year cycle happened to renew itself at the exact moment that the dye was needed for the construction of the Mishkan, or did Hashem miraculously change the natural running of these sea creatures and caused them to rise out of the water unsynchronized?

When the Radziner Rebbe, Rabbi Gershon Henoch Leiner, wanted to renew the use of tcheiles, he found a type of animal whose blood produced a dye which was convincingly that of the tcheiles (the Sepia officinalis- the cuttlefish). Many argued with him by pointing out that the animal he found did not possess this feature of coming out of the sea every seventy years.

In his sefer on the topic, he addresses this concern and responds. He writes: "When the Gemara states that the Chilazon comes out of the water once every seventy years, it cannot mean that it is impossible to be found until that moment, and once that moment is over that the Chilazon is non-extant. After all, the Gemara (Shabbos 26a) points out that Nebuzradan took some of the Jews who he did not exile from Israel and he appointed them as Yogvim (Chilazon catchers) in order to produce blue dye for his royal robes. Now if the Chilazon literally only comes up once in seventy years, how could he assign these people to a job that is basically unavailable? Also, his appointing them as "trappers of the Chilazon" seems to suggest that it was a regular job. Rather, the Chilazon is found commonly. When the Gemara says that it arises once in seventy years, it means that it proliferates and flourishes at this interval. Nevertheless, the Chilazon does not have to be a rarely found species.