Feeling Blue (and White)?

Kachol v’lavan – blue and white.

They are the colors of the Jewish people.  It is not a coincidence that the Israeli flag in is blue and white.  It is modeled after the tallit and tzitzit. 

Austrian poet, Ludwig August von Frankl (1810–94), captured this idea:

He puts on, when prayer fills him,

The colours of his country.

There stands he, wrapped in prayer,

In a sparkling robe of white.

The hems of the white robe

Are crowned with broad stripes of blue;

Like the High Priest's robe,

The blue bands.

These are the colours of the beloved country:

Blue and white are Judah's borders;

White is the priestly radiance,

And blue, the shining of the firmament.

Blue and white are also the colors that shape our religious worldview.

דַּבֵּר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאָמַרְתָּ אֲלֵהֶם וְעָשׂוּ לָהֶם צִיצִת עַל־כַּנְפֵי בִגְדֵיהֶם לְדֹרֹתָם וְנָתְנוּ עַל־צִיצִת הַכָּנָף פְּתִיל תְּכֵלֶת׃

Speak to the Israelite people and instruct them to make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the ages; let them attach a cord of blue to the fringe at each corner.  (Bamidbar 15:38)

The mitzvah of tztzit places blue and white front and center in our religious color spectrum.  Why?

The Talmud (Menachot 43b) teaches:

Rabbi Meir would say: What is different about tekhelet from all other types of colors such that it was chosen for the mitzvah of tzitzit? It is because tekhelet is similar in its color to the sea, and the sea is similar to the sky, and the sky is similar to the Throne of Glory…

Blue is aspirational and inspirational.  The color provides a context for our efforts to reach spiritual heights.

Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik explained that blue and white represent two poles of Jewish experience.  First, he calls attention to the complexity of blue.  The Rabbis could not even agree on which blue was blue!  Rashi and Maimonides felt it was the color of the sky.  But is it the daytime sky which is azure or the nighttime sky which is much darker?  Both hues may be equally inspirational.  Which blue is blue?  Does it even matter?

The Rav, summarizes the symbolism of blue – especially when contrasted with white – in the following manner.  White denotes clarity, distinctness and that which is self-evident.  The prophets speak of white as representing purity and forgiveness.  In modern Hebrew, we find the expression, “ha-devarim melubanim,” which literally translates as the subject is white, used to mean, “the subject is crystal clear.”  Tekhelet, in contrast, which the Talmud described as the color of the sea and the sky and God’s throne, is the color of the grand mysteries of the human experience which elude our precise understanding.  We can never understand the seas and the heavens.  They seem to stretch as far as the eye can see and contain questions far too numerous to answer.  “They encompass the abstract and the transcendent, ultimate values and ends, man’s metaphysical quest and his efforts to rise above the self-evident and the temporal…While the color white bespeaks the clearly perceptible, tekhelet refers to a realm which is only vaguely grasped.”

 

Clarity and complexity.

The Rav goes on to describe that in all areas of our lives we encounter white and tekhelet – the clear and the complex.  In science, we find mathematical precision as well as the uncertainties and imprecise formulations involved in psychology and sociology.  In our personal lives, we experience this dichotomy as well.  Everyone experiences moments when they feel very confident or certain in their actions.  At the same time, there are bound to be periods of questioning and self-doubt.  As the Rav said, “No one can say, ‘The world and I have always gotten along together reasonably, happily, and successfully, with ambitions always being realized. I have never been defeated…’ This is the tekhelet of human experience.”

Think of the last 100 days.  Can we make any sense of what we have experienced due to the Coronavirus?  We are cut off from our familiar routines and experiences, from the people we love.  We are fighting a virus that we barely understand.  We can only approach this in a meaningful way using the language of tekhelet.

The mitzvah of tzitzit and tekhelet create a framework to help us accomplish the easy things and face the challenging ones.  All we need to do is look to the blue and white – whether you wear it, are thinking of getting some, or just close your eyes and imagine it – as a guide to tackling whatever comes our way.