Why Jews Love the Blues - Tehila Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

hey guys so in this past week's parsha we get the commandment about um the you know what you see have this special color of thailand this special blue see i wore my blue head covering in honor of this so uh we have the commandment to wear that seat and the toilet blew now it's not the only time that this color is mentioned in the torah it's mentioned 28 times throughout the torah trailer is mentioned once about but another 27 times about the colors in the tabernacle so this is definitely the dominant color not only on the fringes of a jew's clothing but also in the tabernacle it's what the high priest wore it was used on the curtains to embroider the curtains the technic color was used on the curtain separating the holy of holies from everything else and it was used as the cover of the ark of the covenant so that when israel would travel in the desert they would see this like billow a beautiful toilet why is that so important so in this week's parcel we're told why in chapter 15 verse 40 it says so that you shall remember and perform all of my commandments and you shall be holy to your god i am the lord your god who took you out of the land of egypt to be your god it's kind of weird right how does a color remind you to do commandments how does a color remind you of the exodus so i'm going to get back to that a little bit later so now come back with me to imagine seeing the israelite procession in the desert so you have the high priest walking up ahead and you have this wave of tachelet blue on the ark right which people didn't normally see because it was always inside the tabernacle and then you see you know the jews walking behind the 13th seed and they're you know their blue seats waving in the desert wind what would that look like to like you know some midianite uh merchant passing by or some etymite passing by here's a fun fact that might surprise you what would you say if i told you that most ancient people didn't really see the color blue i don't mean like physically in their eyeballs they couldn't see blue but they didn't really notice it or give it much thought like if they would have seen that procession that to me or you would have looked very unique and striking they might not have even noticed that it was blue how do we know this so it started with william gladstone the famous four times prime minister of england in the late 19th century um william gladstone was a huge fan of homer the greek epic uh poet he would read the iliad and read the odyssey again and again and there was something that bothered him the colors that homer described were really weird like he would describe the sea as being the color of dark wine like i've seen the sea it's not the color of dark wine and other strange descriptions and that got gladstone thinking about colors so he started to reread the odyssey and the iliad and he started to notice the colors so homer was very thoughtful about black and white mentions them about almost 200 times red gets a lot of attention yellow and green are mentioned like 10 times each but no blue none at all even when homer was talking about the sky or the sea never to the point the gladstone actually thought that maybe homer was colorblind which was not true um but following his observation other uh linguists started looking into this and they discovered that in fact ancient languages didn't have the color blue it's true for ancient greek but not only ancient greek it's true for ancient indian ancient chinese all of the super ancient languages didn't have a unique color for blue blue is sort of blobbed into the category of green somewhere now on the one hand it's kind of shocking because blue is everywhere like you look at the sky it's blue you look at the ocean it's blue right but it's not really so shocking when you think about how languages would develop right like imagine you're a caveman and you're starting to try to develop words and language right what are the words that you most urgently need like you'll certainly need red like hey you know hey buddy caveman i'm bleeding come help me i have this red stuff coming out of me right or you know like hey there's you know that orange tree over there let's go get those oranges do you want to help me pick them but there's not much in nature that's blue there's not many blue foods not many blue plants not i don't i don't know any blue animals right there not many blue things you can make into tools yeah there's the sky but who cares what are you gonna do with the sky when you're trying to survive right if there's blood you need to talk about the blood if there's fruit you need to talk about the fruit so blue is really the least important color in nature if you need to communicate and that's probably why blue developed latest in all languages um in terms of the timing of having its own word but here's where it gets really interesting what was later discovered was that some ancient people did have a word for blue and when did it start it started in cultures that learned how to produce dye for fabric as blue dyes started to spread other cultures started to develop a sensitivity to the color blue because it's like hey pass me my blue shirt you need a word for that but if you don't have a blue shirt you don't need a word for blue so here's what we know ancient people didn't have a word for blue until they started to make blue fabric blue fabric blue dye was the trigger for people to begin to notice blue as a separate shade of its own does that mean people didn't see blue no it was just not important enough to get its own word and get its own category it just kind of blobbed into other colors so you know i we have this family uh that lives nearby us they have 13 kids and they dress their kids every day in matching colors and so once i came up to some of the girls and i was like i love your orange dresses you girls look so pretty and they're like it's not orange our dresses are coral i'm sure ladies you can understand this be like oh i love that eggplant shirt and your husband's like the purple one he's like no eggplant right there's different levels of noticing differences between colors right you could just blob them into large categories you could be really specific so this was proven really nicely by a psychologist named jules davidoff he went to this remote tribe called himba they've been never exposed to modern culture they live in northern namibia and in their language they don't have a word for blue he wanted to see do they just not notice blue like do their eyes not see blue do they experience blue so we took them these color swaths and one of them had varying shades of green with one little square that was kind of like an aqua blue and so like the computer made these little you know green squares and this aqua one and they asked them which one is a different category and it took them forever to figure out they didn't notice the difference like the blue one just didn't stand out to my eyes it was like hello there's blue there to them it didn't stand out then they took all these different greens with just one as a slightly different shade of green for me it took a while to see which one was different they invariably noticed it so fast they're like oh that one's a different one so it's not that they can't see blue but they perceive blue as just a part of the category of green whereas within green they have a lot of differentiation that to our eyes might not seem significant like slightly lighter or slightly darker greens that would like be relevant for differentiating plants was much more noticeable to their eyes whereas the difference between one shade of green towards blue was not like a major categorical difference so he said colors are really a lot about what you what you notice what's relevant for you how you categorize things so some cultures will make a lot of distinctions between colors and some will say like okay that's like the general kind of green category so among ancient people there was no category for blue and that was until there was blue dye so now interestingly in egypt there was blue dye egyptians were one of the first people to have a word for blue but throughout canaan assyria the greeks no blue so the jews are leaving egypt a place where they had a word for blue towards a place where nobody is going to know about blue now there's a passage in the talmud that always seemed kind of peculiar to me in tractate manafort rabbi mayer says what makes the tahani color different from all other colors to me that's like um hello it's kind of obvious right but he says what makes it different it says the thailand is similar to the sea the sea is similar to the heavens the heavens are similar to the throne of glory as it is written and beneath his feet was like the forming of a sapphire brick the appearance of the heavens for clarity from exodus 24. so i always thought this was like i guess being poetic to describe how beautiful the tajella is but in light of the discoveries you know in recent years that the ancient peoples didn't recognize blue easily he's not just being poetic he's explaining what the color is how is this different from other colors he's trying to help people he says you want to understand what it is okay look at the sky look at the sea look at a sapphire stone those are essentially the only things in nature that would be defined as blue and he's saying this is a different color it's a different category now interestingly there was still some confusion about this in the jerusalem talmud it says hell it is like the sea catch this trellis is like the sea the sea looks like the grass and the grass looks like the heavens and the heavens are like the throne of glory i mean i've seen grass and i've seen the sky they don't look the same to me and so that interpretation was rejected in favor of robbie mayer's interpretation that it looks like the sky and the sea and you know and the sapphire stone so it's like even within the jewish tradition there was confusion as to what is this color like how blue or how green is it so now let's go back and understand ct a little bit better if blue dye is what allows us to remember that blue is recognized blue as a separate category why does it matter right why is it important for us to have this separate category why do we need to wear it why do we need to put it in the tabernacle right and let's go back to our original question why would looking at it make you remember keeping the commandments and make you remember the exodus okay so i think now it's starting to make sense till it reminds us of looking up at the sky and of seeing the throne of hashem when did we see that when we received the commandments at harassinai that's right when the torah tells us that the throne of hashem looked like the sapphire stone so this reminds us of receiving the commandments the actual color was part of the experience and why is it related to leaving egypt why does it why why does it say that seeing blue will remind us of leaving egypt well it says as barbara meyer says is similar to the sea imagine israel walking through the red sea as it splits what do they see water on both sides they look up they see the blue sky the blue water they're enveloped in the color of tahereh so we have these moments in our natural in our national history these moments the splitting of the sea the moment of receiving the torah at sinai these moments when nature stopped being nature and hashem revealed himself in the world beyond the natural order of things he was like hey i'm hashem i'm here in the world with you right like those moments happen to us in our lives too don't they those moments where you see that like things don't just work in nature hashem comes and makes you feel like he's taking care of you as providence over you how do you capture those moments aren't they so easy to forget isn't it so easy to just like even after you have these transcendent moments in your life to just slip back into the regular into the regular of everything right so you know so is hashem is saying you're going to go to a place where you're going to forget about this you're going to go to a place where people only live in nature they don't have a color of blue you're going to go to canaan they think about survival power violence they need red they need black they need green they don't have blue how are you going to remember that hashem transcends nature that you can connect with him how do you pass on that memory you created moment you created experience you see your seed you see the high priest in his blue you see the tabernacle covered in and you get this wave of memory right it's like a memory that's deeper than your own memories it's your ancestors memories it brings you back to this category of experiences that's where we're able to go beyond the natural world and say don't forget there's something beyond there's something that transcends and when i realized this it helped me unravel another mystery that's been bothering me for a long time the whole oral tradition begins in the mishnah of tractate bracha now if i was starting to pass down the oral tradition what would i start with i would start with something about maybe spirituality the most important things in life what should you strive for but the oral tradition starts with what time you can say the shema right seems a little technical right and then the way that they describe the way that the mission of describes the time is even stranger it says from when can you read the shema in the morning you would think it would say maybe from sunrise or from this many hours it says from the time you can distinguish it from white and rabbi eliezer he differs and he says from the time you can differentiate blue from green this is so strange right why don't you just tell us what time what is the ability to say the shema prayer have anything to do with colors and being having enough light to differentiate between these colors and why these colors in particular so to see toilet and be able to differentiate it from white is like picking up your suits and noticing the toilet noticing the blue it's like our sages are telling us you want to accept hashem into your life you want to say the shema right you need to be able to see what all of it symbolizes it symbolizes these memories of a world that's not just nature but a world where hashem is in control where hashem is the the you know is is something we can connect with hashem despite you know beyond the natural order of things you need to be able to see blue and rabbi elias says no you have to be even more precise it's not just about seeing the blue it's about being able to separate the blue and the green remember those tribes that couldn't differentiate between blue and green don't be like that you want to be a person of hashem you want to live under hashem and say the shema you need to know that there is green which symbolizes the laws of nature and the you know there's when you meet environmentalists what are they called green party the green piece right green is the color of this world can you tell the difference do you know that there's something that's beyond do you remember that there were those that there was the exodus do you remember that hashem came into the world and gave us the commandments we're not just slaves to our nature we serve hashem we serve hashem that is beyond nature and so the toilet has this unbelievable ability to awaken that within us and it's not just for the memory of the past my friend tommy waller when i shared this idea with him he brought my attention to zachariah in the end of chapter eight and it says that in those days ten men of all the languages of the nations shall take hold of the fringe of a jewish man saying let us go with you we have heard that hashem is with you it could have said that ten men will grab the hand of a jew or you know put their arm around the shoulder with you what do they grab onto in the end of days they grab onto the corner of the tsitsite where the it is they're going to hold on to the toilet and say to the people who understand what it is say what is the meaning of this and it'll be the mission to spread this idea to the world the understanding and the memory of the transcendence beyond nature to the deeper meanings revealed to us at exodus and at mount sinai so with that i wish you a beautiful tahelet filled transcendence-filled week hi my name is jeremy gimpel a lot of people want to know exactly what the land of israel fellowship is and what members receive when they join so let me explain the land of israel fellowship is a global online community with hundreds of members from over 40 countries around the world their live sessions and gatherings that create a direct personal connection to the land of israel and the lovers of israel from around the world there's no online gathering that i'm familiar with that is 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