תכלת (חלק 1)

00:00 This is Igris, and today we're going to begin a discussion of Techelet, the blue thread that the Torah commands us to attach to our tzitzit, along with the usual complement of white strings. As you probably know, we lost the tradition of how to make the dye and the identity of the chilazon creature that produces the dye thousands of years ago. As far as I can tell, there wasn't an enormous amount of interest in bringing Techelet back until eighteen eighty-seven, when the Radziner Rebbe examined all of the traditional sources, collected simanim for the chilazon, visited an aquarium, and concluded that the cuttlefish was the long-lost chilazon. The issue was that the cuttlefish made black dye, a problem that he fixed by consulting with expert chemists who told him that if he adds a little bit of iron sulfate to the black dye, it'll turn blue. Uh, I guess fortunately they were right, but unfortunately, uh, they were also tricking him. Rabbi Herzog later on discovered while writing his thesis that these chemists had tricked the Radziner Rebbe, and that if you add any organic compound, cuttlefish ink, cheese, oxblood, to iron sulfate, it'll turn blue, creating the synthetic dye known as Prussian blue. So this was sort of the beginning and the end of Radziner Techelet outside of narrow circles. I believe I'm told that Breslov Hasidim still wear Radziner Techelet. I'm almost certain that the Radziner Hasidim still wear Radziner Techelet. But other than that, that was more or less the end of the discussion.

01:10 This was the only Techelet commercially available, as far as I know, from that time until nineteen ninety-two, at which point organizations in Eretz Yisrael began producing Techelet from a different source, a different chilazon, the chilazon that is far more likely to be the correct one, known as the Murex trunculus, which is a snail. The evidence for the Murex trunculus snail being the long-lost chilazon is extensive. One of the best pieces of evidence is this enormous dye factory excavated along the coast of Eretz Yisrael, where they found thousands upon thousands of Murex trunculus shells pierced exactly where you would pierce the shell to remove a dye sac. And that's besides the fact that the snail fits the description of, the descriptions of Chazal a lot better than the cuttlefish ever did. Our big question, the one that we're going to be discussing today, is what the Rebbe thinks about Radziner Techelet. And the reason why we're focusing on what the Rebbe thinks about Radziner Techelet is because the other one didn't exist. The other one came out for the first time in nineteen ninety-two. As far as we know, the Rebbe never, uh, never saw the modern Techelet. So we're dealing with Radziner Techelet. Our question is what the Rebbe thinks about the original Techelet, about attempts to bring back Techelet to discover the chilazon and reinstitute a long-lost mitzvah, and what the Rebbe thinks in general about Techelet nowadays. These are our goals for today. We have a side question, and, uh, it's made a

02:19 side question because, as I said already, it's going to be purely a matter of speculation. Our side question is what the Rebbe would say about Techelet being made from the Murex trunculus, and we will try to give some ideas as to what the Rebbe might say about the new si- situation. But again, need to caution you up front, we have no idea what the Rebbe would say exactly about the current Murex trunculus Techelet because the Rebbe never commented on it. Anyway, today, which is our first year of a two-part series, we're going to look at a long and foundational letter from the Rebbe Rashab explaining why he does not agree with the Radziner Techelet. Tomorrow, in the next year of the two-part series, two out of two, we're going to look at a letter from the Rebbe, as well as a conversa- a conversation that he had at the Pesach seder between, uh, between the Rebbe and the Rashag, his brother-in-law, uh, discussing the Radziner Techelet. And then we're going to look at a few sichas where the Rebbe discusses why we don't have Techelet nowadays, and one sicha where, between me and you, he strongly suggests we might not even want Techelet nowadays. That will bring us to the, again, speculative question, what would the Rebbe's shitah be on the Murex trunculus Techelet that is now available? You're probably aware, you're probably aware that a small number of Lubavitcher Hasidim have recently begun wearing Techelet. We'll try to explain what they might be thinking.

03:23 If we're lucky, we'll have time to look at a fascinating pamphlet put together by our very own Rabbi Weisberg, who's local to the Monsey area. He does an excellent job there of explaining why we might say that the Rebbe and the Rebbe Rashab's anti-Radziner Techelet positions might not apply to modern Techelet. Nonetheless, bemichilas kved haratzon, I'm going to respectfully disagree and explain why I think the Rebbe Rashab's letter and the sources from the Rebbe, even though they're not about the modern snail-based Techelet, would still apply to the current model, and I'm going to explain why I don't think wearing Techelet nowadays makes sense for a Chassid of the Rebbe, even if you're convinced that they found the authentic chilazon based on the sources we're going to look at. But that's all a very long introduction. Without further ado, let's look at the Rebbe Rashab's letter inside. So you have the Rebbe Rashab's letter on your screen. It is in Igris Rashab in the first volume. They also recently republished it. It's a little bit prettier in there, in, uh, in something. It says Shut Techeilet Shalom, I believe it's called. In any event, the letter is labeled kuf nun chet. This is a letter from the Rebbe Rashab, and it's dated 5 Shvat of Taf Resh Samech Zayin. Uh, and the Rebbe Rashab writes. And he gives a bunch of honorifics to the, to the person he's writing to, which is actually the son of the Radziner Rebbe who discovered the Techelet. The Radziner Rebbe,

04:28 relatively shortly after discovering, um, discovering his chilazon, the cuttlefish, and writing multiple seforim defending this idea and sort of trying to publicize it, he didn't live very long after that, and his son sort of took over the charge. So this letter is, uh, the charge of sending letters to Gedolei HaMei HaYisrael asking for their approval. Uh, and this letter, apparently the Rebbe Rashab had received a letter from the Radziner son and wrote back to the Radziner son about his father's work. So the Rebbe writes, "Kavod HaRav Haguen, a foresome day to be That's in the, uh, Darushim over there. Let me just find our place again. So the Alter Rebbe in Likutei Torah, in the Miima that is called already explains be- he takes bepshitos. He says without any sort of argument or discussion, he accepts, the Alter Rebbe, uh, automatically accepts the position of the Pri Ha'etz Chaim, then which is the Arizal, that that nowadays there's no techeles. Uh, and since the Alter Rebbe brings that bepshitos, that's the Alter Rebbe saying he agrees with it. So what the Rebbe Rashab is saying is, the Arizal said you cannot have techeles . That is, after the destruction of the , there cannot be techeles until , until Mashiach comes. You cannot have techeles in . Now, the Alter Rebbe brings this Arizal and doesn't argue with it. He doesn't say, "Oh, maybe it'll be introduced one day. There's a like this." The, uh, the Alter Rebbe brings it as though it is fact.

06:53 Therefore, for the Alter Rebbe, this was also fact. And the Rebbe Rashab, a descendant of the Alter Rebbe, is saying, "I'm not going against my Rebbe. So no matter what you're gonna show me, even if you give me the best proofs in the world that you have found the techeles, I will never agree with you, and you . I could never agree with the idea that techeles is back in because while we're in exile, we can't have techeles. The Arizal said so, the Alter Rebbe said so, and I have the Alter Rebbe. I trust him." We're not gonna read the whole letter. We're gonna jump around a little bit, so we're gonna skip a couple paragraphs, and I'm gonna bring you to, uh, the paragraph that begins on the second page. And here he goes into a little bit of detail of what the Pri Ha'etz Chaim says exactly why we can't have techeles nowadays. . Based on that which is said in the Pri Ha'etz Chaim, which is written in the Pri Ha'etz Chaim from the Arizal, that after the Chorban, after the destruction of the , we don't have techeles anymore. That's because nowadays we can't have a . We can't really grasp a lofty level known as the . That is the of . So are the Kabbalistic terms for the main parsufim of and . This would be the parts of, of and the of , which would be the . Uh, if you can imagine such a thing. That would

08:04 be the spark of initial intellect that powers the parsuf, the general, uh, face appearance of , which is understanding, oversimplified. The-- Let's just, let's just use the Kabbalah words rather than trying to teach Kabbalah in English here. Fact is that there is something called the, the and is not-- you're not able to draw that down nowadays in . Nonetheless, you can get something else almost as good. He doesn't say almost as good. You can get something else, which is the . You can get the of but you can't get the of . So there's a level that you can draw down using your white tzitzit strings. But the techeles, which used to draw down this , this very, very high level, the very highest level of , we can't draw down anymore. So functionally, all you really need to know in order to understand the letter at this point is that there's something very lofty called and we're unable to bring it down nowadays via techeles. It says, "It's true that immediately-- in the immediate aftermath of the there were still people wearing techeles," but he says, "It's ," says the Rebbe Rashab. "It's based on the Pri Ha'etz Chaim that he would tell you that if you ask the Arizal, the Alter Rebbe, 'What do you think about this?' He would tell you people kept wearing the techeles, but it wasn't doing anything Kabbalistically anymore. It wasn't having this Kabbalistic goal accomplished of drawing down , excuse me, of . This just wasn't happening

09:23 after the destruction of the . That's what we lost, and that's why the techeles ended up becoming obsolete." We're gonna go down a little bit to the bottom of that paragraph. Nowadays, after the , after the destruction of the , we are not able to draw down anything higher than of . We're not able to draw down of . So we're missing this higher level. Even when there was techeles, certainly they were not able to get any more of than we're able to get now. That means in the aftermath of the destruction of the . So this is a very long way of saying that from the time the -- the first was destroyed all the way until the present, we have been unable to draw down this particular level. So the Rebbe Rashab continues, . That even back then, after the destruction of the , the techeles that they had was unable to draw this down, just like ours is nowadays, which is a very long way of saying that, uh, that the techeles that we would have nowadays, if you were to find the correct chilazon and put it on tzitzit, you still would not be drawing down the level of of, uh, the of . Now the Rebbe Rashab goes back in the other direction. He says, "Wait a second. Just because you can't draw down the Kabbalistic heights of techeles doesn't mean you're patur from a mitzvah," that's a . If there's a Torah commandment, you need to put blue on

10:35 your strings, and you're not able to tap into the Kabbalah anymore, that shouldn't cancel the mitzvah. It's a perpetual mitzvah. It would seem that as long as we're able to fulfill it, we should fulfill it. And this is sort of a standing question where the Rebbe Rashab says, "I've now explained why al pi Kabbalah, al pi Kabbalah there's no, uh, there's no techeles nowadays." The reason why Hashem took away the techeles, made it, uh, made it impossible for us to wear it, the reason why we're not wearing it, is because we're unable to draw down this lofty Kabbalistic level. But then the Rebbe Rashab says, uh, following that theory, if you were to find the right chilazon, we would have to bring it back. Uh, because it's-- even though I wouldn't be able to fulfill the Kabbalistic ideas, I wouldn't be able to draw down the of , nonetheless, if I can do a mitzvah, I do a mitzvah, even if I can't bring down the Kabbalah. So how can I cancel it based on these Kabbalistic grounds? Which means that there's a part two here. The part two here is that Kabbalah isn't enough to actually cancel this. The, um, the lack of the Kabbalistic isn't enough to cancel this. We had at the beginning of the letter that the Rebbe Rashab says that the I'm unable to agree with you and, and allow this techeles because the Alter Rebbe says that we're unable to draw down this level nowadays. We can't have this

11:36 in Galus. But now the Rebbe Rashab is sort of asking on himself. He's saying, "If that's true, though, that would just mean I can't get the Kabbalah. That doesn't mean that I can't do the mitzvah. I do the mitzvah without the extra Kabbalah boost. So I'll do the mitzvah of techeles 'cause Hashem told me to, the Kabbalah's ill, and, uh, who cares that I'm not gonna-- Who cares? But it's not going to affect my observance of the mitzvah that I'm unable to draw down this particularly lofty ." And here's where the Rebbe Rashab adds an additional dimension. The Rebbe Rashab says, . In order to understand this, I want you to take a look at the mitzvah . The blowing shofar on Shabbos. As I'm sure you know, we don't blow the shofar on Shabbos. As I'm sure you also know, it's a , Torah commandment that you must blow the shofar on Shabbos. And it's explained in the Mishnah at the beginning of, uh, uh, at the beginning of, uh, Perek Dalet, the Rosh Hashanah, "B'migdash hayu takein," that in the Beit HaMikdash they would blow the shofar on Shabbos. "Av halevi b'Medinah," but not in the shuls that are out in the Medina, not outside the Beit HaMikdash. "Shegvara tamishul gezera d'Rava." And the g-- and the reason given there is Gezera D'Rava. Gezera D'Rava, very famous decree, is that we are worried that somebody might carry the shofar, "Dalot amos u'reshus harabim". And because we're worried that somebody who's ignorant might end

12:36 up violating a Torah commandment by carrying the shofar on Shabbos, we outlawed shofar on Shabbos. And, uh, "Be'ezes davar pela," it's a shocking thing. "Lhitcheis mitzvah sease mishum chashash rocha kol kach." It's really a shocking thing, says the Rabbi Rashab, that we would take a mitzvah d'oraisa of shofar, a Torah commandment of shofar, and say we're not gonna do it anymore because we have a distant concern, a "chashash rocha kol kach," that we're worried that some guy who doesn't know any better is gonna carry the shofar. Since when do we cancel mitzvahs? A mitzvah asei. Since when do we cancel one of the six hundred and thirteen commandments, blowing shofar on Rosh Hashanah, 'cause I'm worried that some guy's gonna make a mistake on Shabbos? "Kry shiks halzeh b'klal D'tara b'derabina Rosh Hashanah," and "D'varim ahasu v'ha van haMishnah". Frankly, this is asked in Likutei Torah, this is asked in many, many Mimarim. Many Mimarim address this question, and he's going to give the answer that's given in almost all of the Mimarim. Uh, they almost all say as, uh, as actually, as far as I know, they all say this answer. "V'ha'teretz. B'vor sham. Dil yesh b'Shabbos d'lav hachi. Yesh hamshacha eresh mamshich hanai shofar." That on Shabbos you get a hamshacha of special light. You get a special light on Shabbos whether or not you do shofar. And the sh-- and, uh, excuse me. "B'vor sham. Dil yesh b'Shabbos d'lav hachi. Yesh hamshacha eresh mamshich hanai shofar." That is that the same light

13:36 you would have drawn down by shofar is drawn down on Shabbos. "V'ameila. Eina nitztech l'shofar." Therefore, the shofar is Kabbalistically redundant. That is that whatever I would have gotten from the shofar, I'm getting from Shabbos. "Mi kol makam. Mina Terah mitzvot v'chiv litcheah gam sh'cha b'Shabbos." The reason why the Torah gave me this mitzvah nonetheless, "b'vor sham" is explained over there. "M'nei sheyesh kamat d'regot b'chinas tanig" is because there's different levels of tanig, of great joy, delight, that can be drawn down into this world through the performance of different mitzvahs. "V'adi haShofar nimshach ha tanig el nieseh sh'movt b'erach v'hamshachas ha tanig b'Shabbos." Fact is that shofar blown, shofar blown in the times of the Beit HaMikdash would draw down the highest level tanig, and Shabbos draws down a lower level tanig. "L'chein nitztech hamshofar mina Terah b'Shabbos kan," therefore the Torah says, "Blow the shofar on Shabbos," because Shabbos itself will bring you a baseline tanig. But if you really want to bring down the highest tanig, bring down the greatest hamshachas Kabbalistically, the best thing to do would be the, would be to blow, would be to blow the shofar on Shabbos, and that's mina Terah. "Acharon banan dachah mitzvah asei zeh b'Shabbos bizman bay Yesheni." However, the Rabanan, they got rid of this mitzvah asei when it falls on Shabbos in the time of the second Beit HaMikdash. Why? "L'vi sheein bi ychaleseinu hamshich hamshacha mitisa nimshacha idei shofar," because we can't draw down that level anymore b-by way of shofar since

14:41 the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash. "Mi kol bakam. B'migdash hayu takein," nonetheless in the Beit HaMikdash you still could draw it down. "Gam bay Yesheni," even in the second Beit HaMikdash. "D'ey esa shaaray shamayim hayah yakhu liyesh b'gilei hanal." You could bring this down in the second Beit HaMikdash 'cause it was by the shaaray shamayim, the gates of heaven. "V'al lei b'vulun," but not in Vulun. Okay, so what's the Rabbi Rashab saying here? He's giving the classic explanation in Chassidus for why we don't blow shofar on Shabbos and why the Torah wanted us to blow shofar on Shabbos. Before the Beit HaMikdash got destroyed, the shofar was able to draw down an incredibly lofty Kabbalistic level. Nowadays, it's not able to do that anymore. The level it draws down is identical to the level you get just by keeping Shabbos. So whereas there was room before for us to blow this-- not just room, it was a requirement for us before to blow the shofar on Shabbos and draw down this Kabbalistic level, the overriding principle here is that when the Kabbalistic reason for something goes away, we sometimes do cancel a mitzvah, but only if we're concerned about someone possibly doing an aveira. That is that, uh, that-- Let's keep on reading down here. "B'migdash hayu takein rak anaf k'mini b'vulun kanal. Mash talut tkia shofar b'chashash hamidlenu." There we go. So the concern, the Gezera D'Rava concern, what's the reason why we got rid of shofar on Shabbos? We were concerned that somebody

15:43 might do an aveira, which the Rabbi Rashab now introduces as a model for mitzvah asei. And this is a big Chassidus from the Rabbi Rashab. Um, as far as I know, nobody said this before him, and no one said it after either. I think this is entirely the Rabbi Rashab's Chassidus, that as far as I know. That every mitzvah has the basic element that needs to be kept and also a Kabbalistic boost. And if we lose the Kabbalistic boost, we still keep the mitzvah. But if we lose the Kabbalistic boost and there's a risk of that mitzvah causing an aveira, we drop the mitzvah completely. And the example of this is shofar on Shabbos. That the shofar used to have a Kabbalistic boost. Once it lost that boost, we asked ourselves, "Is there any chance someone might do an aveira with this?" And the answer was, "Yeah, I might carry the shofar on Shabbos." And because of that, we canceled the entire mitzvah. And the Rabbi Rashab now says, this part's the Rabbi Rashab's Chassidus, that applies to any mitzvah that no longer has its Kabbalistic boost. If it's missing its extra spiritual status that would have gotten in the time of the Beit HaMikdash, we reanalyze the mitzvah and we ask ourselves, "Should we be keeping it nowadays? Only if I can't find any aveira that it could cause." Now listen to what the Rabbi Rashab says. "Mash talut tkia shofar b'chashash hamidlenu." The fact that the grounds for dismissing tkia shofar on Shabbos

16:49 was that somebody might carry it, says the Rabbi Rashab, "Yas pik chan," what would I say over here by tzitzit, "achashash d'kilayim?" What about the concern of Shatnez, of mixing wool and linen together? "Shlavem baka mitzvah" when there's no mitzvah. Now, the necessary background here is that from a Torah perspective, you are allowed to attach wool tzitzit to a linen garment, even though you're not allowed to mix wool and linen. It's because the two psukim are next to each other. This is learned out from the fact that there's the psukim are next to each other. The psukim of kilayim, of not mixing, uh, not mixing different species, is followed immediately by "g'dilim tas elach," saying that you should put, uh, put, uh, tzitzit strings on your corners of your garments to teach you that that's an exception to the rule. That although you're normally not allowed to mix wool and linen, you can mix wool and linen when you're making tzitzit. So wool tzitzit on a linen garment mid'oraisa is fine from a Torah perspective. The Rabanan forbade it. However, some amaratzim, some simple people, they might not know this and they might wear it that way anyway. They might put on a linen garment with wool tzitzit. Now, are they vi- Are they doing an aveira? And the answer is no, they're not doing an aveira. They're, they're violating a D'Rabanan, which is, you know, yesh ken and achash. But at the same time, they're not violating a Torah pro-- they're not violating a

17:44 Torah prohibition. So what's his concern? Says, "Yas pik chan achashash d'kilayim shelo baka mitzvah." I'm worried that maybe they'll wear it shlavem baka mitzvah. When would it not be a mitzvah to wear tzitzit? At night. So let's say somebody has a linen garment. They attach wool tzitzit with techelet on their garment. And then they, and then they, uh, then they're hanging out wearing their tzitzit. They don't get changed when the sun goes down. I don't know. It's the wintertime. It's shkiyah. The sun sets. Now they're wearing tzitzit at night. Right now it's not a mitzvah to wear tzitzit. If the mitzvah to wear tzitzit isn't there, then now all they have is a normal garment with strings attached to it. And a linen garment with wool strings attached to it is shatnez. They would end up violating an, an issur darai. So that's the concern here. Perhaps it'll be nighttime. Something like perhaps the, the regeit will be smaller than the shir. There's a couple ways that tzitzit wouldn't be a mitzvah. But in any event, if that were to happen, this is a, this is a distant concern. V'rat, uh, v'rat, espe-es-especially, um, nowadays, that there are kama anashim pshutim, that there are all sorts of simple people, nesim shleimim tamer, that some simpletons-- I like this. The Rebbe Rashab says there are certain simpletons out there who have a talis katan that's not made out of wool. He's not saying made out of cotton or made out of T-shirt material or mesh, but

18:43 that is kind of what he means. He says there are simple people out there who don't know that tzitzit should be made out of wool ideally, and they wear it with other materials. Perhaps a simple person could end up getting themselves a linen garment and attaching tzitzit to it. Di v'i inyan teches da ve'shavu l'chol nefesh. And if you're gonna tell me that teches is something that everybody is supposed to adopt, uh, har zeh chashash l'rachok shavu d'esei kilayim. It's not a d-- it's not really all that distant, the concern, that someone could end up, some guy somewhere might end up doing the issur of kilayim, might end up violating the issur of shatnez. V'ha'izei mamash k'mesh amrudin t'kiat shofar, then the Rebbe Rashab here says that is literally har zeh mamash k'mesh amrudin t'kiat shofar. It's gonna have all the same rules as shofar. The rule was hakol chaim t'kiat shofar nikaba kiam. Everybody is chaiv in t'kiat shofar. Everybody's required to hear it. Not everybody's good at doing it. Some people are simple. They could make a mistake. And because the Kabbalistic inyan of shofar no longer exists, we're willing to cancel it entirely because we're worried that some guy who's ignorant might end up doing an aveira. Similarly says the Rebbe Rashab, the entire Kabbalistic idea of teches, which was drawing down chochma d'ima, is not possible anymore. So the Kabbalistic inyan fell away. Now that the Kabbalistic inyan isn't there anymore, we ask ourselves, could these teches cause somebody to do

19:46 an aveira? And the answer is, of course, it could cause them to wear shatnez. And if it could cause them to wear shatnez, the same rule of gezeirat deRabba should kick in. So what the Rebbe Rashab is doing, which is just wild, just incredible, is that he's adding a new gezeira to gezeirat deRabba. He's saying gezeirat deRabba is not just a gezeira that applies to t'kiat shofar on Shabbos. It applies to any mitzvah that loses its Kabbalistic booster. In-incredible. I just want to show you this last part at the end. That, that's the end of the meat of the letter. I just want to show you this, this kind of a sweet paragraph here near the end of the letter that I do want to show you. So the Rebbe Rashab says near the end of the letter, "Ki mitzori achilas in Maimar, uh, Maimar Pitil Teches." You sent me your book, which is called the Maimar Pitil Teches, and there you, uh, mention what the shape of the chilazon is, your cuttlefish theory. "Ki medumali," says the Rebbe Rashab, "I'm pretty sure, barur, sh'odeh isi zeh ki esrim shana milifnim be aquarium d'Berlin." He says, "I'm pretty sure twenty years ago I saw that in the Berlin Aquarium." The Rebbe Rashab had been in Berlin twenty years previously. He'd gone to the aquarium, and he thinks he saw the cuttlefish. "Re'isi chayit tana." I saw a small animal. "Vi merikel itim mitz shachar." It would sometimes expel black ink from it. "Shemashches mayim siva."

20:45 And it would make the water black around it. Maybe that was your cuttlefish. "V'lo shalo al atish zeh yihiye chilazon." It didn't even occur to me, says the Rebbe Rashab, that might be a chilazon. I can't tell if that's a dig or not. It might be. "Lo sandei leiv l'ayin al kol pratim." I didn't ta-- I didn't take the time to pay attention to all of its details because it didn't even occur to me that it might be the chilazon. "Hashem yitbarach ya'aze lanu l'kayim et mitzvos yitbarach." He gives a bracha to the Radzina, that Hashem should help us keep the mitzvos. "Hashem yiten bilvinu ahava d'beliya shalom." That Hashem should give us the will to serve Him with a complete heart. "Misgeha d'viyesh Mashiach tzedek bimheira b'yameinu." Should-- We should merit to see the coming of Mashiach speedily. "Ve'nas l'fanav b'tzitzus tzedek yitbarach." And there we'll be able to do the mitzvos the way that Hashem will want it. So we have here from the Rebbe Rashab letter, uh, really a, a very thorough-- We didn't read the whole thing even, but I think we got some of the major points. A real thorough discussion of why the Rebbe Rashab is not happy with the idea of teches nowadays. Let's just sum it all up. The, the Rebbe Rashab, first of all, says that he's thrilled to receive the books describing the Radzina's ideas, but he cannot agree with the conclusion for one central reason. The Alter Rebbe in Maimon Likutateira brings the Arizal's

21:40 statement that nowadays we don't have teches, so even if you found the right fish, we by definition can't have teches nowadays. Uh, my Rebbe says no, and my, my Rebbe says no, and that's it. The Rebbe Rashab then elaborates and explains that we're unable to draw down the lofty Kabbalistic levels that used to be part of the mitzvah of teches, namely, uh, chochma of bina eloh. And then the Rebbe Rashab links it to halakha, and he introduces a principle. He tells us that any mitzvah, say, that loses its Kabbalistic value due to galus is canceled if there's any risk, even a chashash, a chashash, rachok be'eizer, that it may cause someone to violate a Torah commandment. Drawing from the decision of Chazal to cancel shofar on Shabbos due to concerns that someone ignorant might carry a shofar in public, the Rebbe Rashab expresses concern that someone ignorant might violate shatnez with teches. Okay. Uh, I think that's it for now. In the next shiur, we're going to see how the Rebbe deals with this letter. We're going to discuss whether its central principles will apply to teches nowadays or whether this letter should be strictly seen as a response to Radzina teches. Uh, thank you all very much. That's it for now.