Author: BenG

It’s no secret that Murex techelet is pricey. But we make every effort to keep it as affordable as possible. Last week we received an insightful inquiry from a customer:

I’d like to buy the Wool Comfort, size large, thick Murex strings, tied Rambam 7. Is it possible to receive a lower price seeing as the tying method is Rambam 7? I can see if that I select Rambam 7 when ordering individual strings from your website, the price is $45, versus $70 for Rambam 13 (a $35 difference). But when ordering the “Wool Comfort” Rambam 7 is only $5 cheaper than Rambam 13 (a price difference that I assume simply reflects the longer time it takes to tie Rambam 13). Is it possible my final price can reflect the fact that Rambam 7 strings are significantly less expensive than the other methods? Thanks, Jack P.

Jack is entirely right. Rambam 7 strings do save you a whole lot of money. Why the huge price differential?

White tzitzit strings don’t cost a whole lot of money. We sell standard hand-spun strings for just $10-$12 (depending on the thickness). Ptil Tekhelet strings are just those same white strings, except that of the 16 strings one-eighth (Rambam) or one-fourth (Raavad) or half (Tosafot) have been dyed with Murex dye. That bit of dye costs a whole lot of money.

And since it’s really the dye that you’re paying for (i.e. the labor and transport costs involved in producing the dye as well as the dyeing process), if there’s more dye, the production cost goes up significantly. Simple math.

To help keep their products affordable, the Ptil Tekhelet Association decided to price the short strings as low as possible.

For those who are not so familiar with techelet tying, here’s a bit of background: Some tying customs use up much more of the length of the blue strings than others. For example, Arizal (a.k.a. Chabad or Radzyn) tying involves winding the blue strings around the seven other strings a total of 37 times, whereas on the other extreme, there are some uncommon methods that require winding the blue strings around as few as 9 times! (Most methods are somewhere in between.)

If you were to use regular length strings and just wind the blue around 9 times, when you’re finished tying you’ll wind up (no pun intended) with a whole lot of extra blue string length which you might just snip off and toss out. 

So Ptil Tekhelet makes certain sets (which most sellers don’t carry at all) that have short blue strings to save consumers money. 

They offer string sets marked”Raavad – Chinuch/Gra.” That means they follow the Raavad’s approach of a 1:3 ratio, and the blue strings are long enough to tie according to Sefer HaChinuch, the Vilna Gaon (Gra), the Raavad and some other methods. 

They also have string sets that are even shorter, marked “Raavad 7.” Again, these have the Raavad ratio, and the blue strings are long enough to tie according to what you might call an abbreviated version of Vilna Gaon or Amram Gaon tying, with just 7 chulyot. These are very affordable.

Ptil Tekhelet also makes string sets marked “Rambam 7” designed to be used to do Yemenite/Rambam tying with 7 chulyot, which is actually a fairly common tying method. Again, these sets are not so expensive at all. 

So based on the above, on our website you could save quite a lot of money on techelet if you select “I don’t need tzitzit” when you add any tallit or tallit katan to your cart, then add a set of short strings to your cart.

This week we had a customer from South America who chatted with us on WhatsApp to ask questions about a tallit for his son. He then wrote that he’ll need a tallit bag for his son, and wants the letter embroidery to look like his tallit bag, just with a different first name, of course.

“See how it looks on my bag, including the ע”ה at the top?”

“Yes, I can see that,” I replied. “That’s doable.”

Later in the conversation, I couldn’t contain my curiosity, and asked him what the ע”ה stands for.

“That’s an abbreviation for ‘עבד ה, [Servant of Hashem]” he explained. “My grandfather told me that’s the Moroccan custom.”

I’d never come across that, but in any case I thought it was a fabulous custom.

Upon resuming work Thursday following Pesach, we discovered that the Israel Post commercial shipping portal had been completely taken down following a major cyber attack perpetrated by anonymous enemies of the State of Israel.

Calcalist reports that no sensitive information was leaked and no damage was caused. However, when we called Israel Post technical support, they said that at present there is no timetable for resumption of service. 

Israel Post provides pickup service three times a week, on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. We definitely won’t be shipping any First Class or EMS parcels this Sunday, 25 Nissan (16 Apr.). If the portal is up and running by Monday morning, we’ll be able to get shipments out on Tuesday morning. If the problem is not resolved until Tuesday or Wednesday, we’ll ship on Thursday. 

We trust our customers will appreciate that this is completely beyond our control. The Israel Post portal has not crashed for more than an hour or two during the past decade, so this comes as quite a surprise. There is an uptick in anti-Israel hacking attacks every year during the month of Ramadan, and this year’s targeting of Israel Post was quite sophisticated.

The unexpected cyber attack had a significant impact for some of our customers, since it comes on the heels of our week-long Passover shutdown.

Our express shipping option is handled by DHL, which has not been impacted at all, so we urge customers placing orders this week to select the DHL option is the order is time-sensitive.

For detailed shipping information, please refer to this page.

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Update: Sunday, 25 Nissan (16 Apr.)

The Israel Post commercial shipping portal is now working again, sooner than expected. Based on the tracking data, it appears that the Export Bureau has a considerable backlog due to Passover and the cyber attack.

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Update: Tuesday, 27 Nissan (18 Apr.)

The shipping portal continues to function without problems. Upon reviewing the tracking data over the past two weeks, we noticed that a lot of parcels got off to a slow start. Apparently the Passover holidays and the cyber attack took their toll, causing a significant bottleneck; but over the past two days we saw that many parcels started moving through the system, and we’re hopeful that all of the parcels that were delayed will be out of the country by the end of this week (i.e. Thursday night).

Now that Rosh Chodesh Nissan is upon us, and Pesach is in the air, here are a handful of handy Passover prep resources:

Jamie Geller – The Ultimate Seder Checklist

Jamie Geller – Countdown to Passover: 24 Tips to Help You Get Ready for the Holiday

Chabad.org – Cleaning Checklist

Torah-Box – Printable Checklist

OU Kosher – OU Guide to Passover 2023

Aish.com – Passover articles

And speaking of Passover preparation, if you need a matzah cover or Afikoman bag, you might want to take a look here.

In the Shulchan Aruch we learn that the
proper intention, when fulfilling the mitzvah of tzitzis, is to keep in mind that we
are commanded to wrap ourselves in a garment with tzitzis in order to
remember all of the mitzvahs and fulfill them (Orech Chaim 8, 8).

And here the Vilna
Gaon has a surprising take, explaining that the mitzvah of tzitzis
teaches us that we shouldn’t do mitzvahs by rote, but rather should
imbue them with a spirit of newness (Biur HaGra 16).

Tzitzis is a very
common, day-to-day mitzvah, often inculcated in boys from the tender
age of three, so it might appear to be one of the least likely ways
to achieve a spirit of newness, yet the Vilna Gaon says we should
leverage the mitzvah of tzitzit to rejuvenate our approach to doing
mitzvahs.

Coming from a
tzitzit seller, you might think I’m hinting that you should go out
and buy some new tzitzit. But really one of the primary ways to
achieve renewal through tzitzit is to deepen our understanding of the
mitzvah, primarily by studying the halacha of tzitzit and related
material. And of course the month of Nissan is prime-time for rejuvenation (Shemos 12, 2).

In Kovetz Iggeros
(Iggeres 10), the Chazon Ish writes:

כשתזכה לקיים
מצוות ציצית תרגיש שמחה מופרזה ברגשי
קודש לקשר קשר של קיימא עם התורה והמצווה
ועם הברית עולמית

I’m unable to do
justice to the above quote, but the gist of it is that when you
fulfill the mitzvah of tzitzit properly, you feel a sense of holy joy
that binds you with the Torah and the mitzvahs.

At the very end of
Shemiras HaLashon, the Chafetz Chaim quotes the Gemara, which
teaches us that seeing tzitzit induces us to remember the mitzvahs,
and in turn, remembering the mitzvahs brings us to fulfill them
(Menachos 43b).

He explains that the
above teaching of Chazal only applies if one studies and acquires
knowledge of the mitzvahs, but is worried he could forget. He
compares this to someone who jots down a list of merchandise he plans
to buy, and reviews the list repeatedly. But if he is unfamiliar with
the merchandise, it goes without saying that the list won’t help
him.

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The above is
based largely on a talk given by HaRav Reuven Hechster, given in late
Adar 5783.

A few times a year we get inquiries from customers who have an heirloom tallit in the family with a lot of sentimental value. Here’s one recent inquiry:

Recently my Uncle passed on his grandfather’s tallit from Austria. It has disintegrated in parts and is too fragile to be worn in its current state. I was thinking that I would like it to be restored/salvaged into a new tallit for my son’s Bar Mitzvah in 2023. My questions to you are: 1) Is it a mitzvah to salvage old instead of buying a new one for my son? 2) Is this done regularly?

I’m a bit hesitant to send it, but here’s the reply I’ve drafted:

Thank you for your inquiry. I don’t feel qualified to tackle this question, but I can share with you my personal feelings.

The idea of a tallit for prayer is largely to stand before G-d in a distinguished fashion.

Foregive the parallel, but for the sake of argument, let’s say your husband has an appointment with the Chief Rabbi of Israel. He decides to wear a tattered suit that was worn by a relative who was a Holocaust survivor. The suit was worn at his wedding in a DP camp six months after Liberation. Your husband assures you he’ll fill the Rabbi in on the background as soon as he steps in, to avoid any affront for seemingly coming dressed in an unbefitting manner.

Not such a great comparison, but do you get the idea? You might tell your husband to think twice about wearing the suit.

I once had a customer who said he wanted us to put techelet tzitzit on his tallit. He lived about 10 minutes away in Modi’in. The next day he brings me a tattered tallit, and tells me he’ll pay extra if we untie the old frayed tzitzit and incorporate those strings with the techelet in his new tallit. His father had passed away not so long ago, he explained, and he wanted to remember his father every morning when he kisses his tzitzit during Kriat Shema.

Quite touching. In fact, it was so touching that I didn’t have the heart to state my objections, even in a gentle manner. But truth be told, we have a concept of noy tzitzis, which means tzitzis should be aesthetically pleasing. Not just tzitzis. The same applies with every mitzvah object. Zeh Keli v’anveihu. That’s why a lot of people have a nice menorah for Chanukah, buy tefillin with attractive writing and a good paint job, put their mezuzah scroll inside an attractive case, buy a pretty challah cover for their Shabbos table, etc. And the same applies to the mitzvah of tzitzit, which we fulfill with a tallit.

In addition to requests to restore a vintage tallit, sometimes we get customers who want to buy a tallit as close as possible to the old tallit passed down in the family. (BTW, this reminds me of the think begadim chamudos passed down through the generations all the way from Adam and Chava down to Yaakov Avinu.) That makes more sense to me. Then we can try take a look at the striping pattern, the atara (neck band) and the corner squares, and see if we can come up with something that comes close.