What Color Is Your Tzitzit?

The very last section of Parashat Sh’lach introduces the mitzvah of tzitzit, the ritual fringes that the Israelites are commanded wear on the four corners of their garments as a continual reminder to keep God’s commandments. 

“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 (tekhelet) to the fringe at each corner… look at it and recall all the commandments of Adonai and observe them, so that you do not follow your heart and eyes in your lustful urge. Thus you shall be reminded to observe all My commandments and to be holy to your God.” (Numbers 15:38-40)

Today, tzitzit are worn on the tallit (prayer shawl) and, by some, attached to a four-cornered undergarment known as a tallit katan (small tallit). There are varied communal customs about tying them. Ashkenazi Jews generally use four doubled threads, knotted and wound in a precise pattern — seven, eight, eleven and thirteen windings, separated by five knots. Rabbinic tradition explains their symbolism in detail. For example, Rashi explains that the numerical value of the word tzitzit is 600, and when we add the eight threads and five knots, we arrive at 613, corresponding to the total number of mitzvot in the Torah.

One of my favorite interpretations of tzitzit comes from Professor Ephraim Speiser, who suggested that people used to imprint one of their fringes onto clay tablets as their signature in ancient times, which may be the source of the tradition of touching the Torah with tzitzit as we come to make an aliyah. It’s like we are “signing on” to the Torah. 

But there’s one important aspect of tzitzit that has faded with time and that is color. Most modern tzitzit are all white, even though the Torah specified that special thread of tekhelet be used. Tekhelet was a royal blue color used in the curtains of the tabernacle and the garments of the high priest and mentioned as part of regal clothing in the book of Esther. 

The color blue in Judaism has long been a gateway to the transcendent. In Jewish Blues: A History of a Color in Judaism, Gadi Sagiv explores how blue functioned as a visual link to the Divine and a spiritual anchor throughout Jewish history. The Talmud (Bavli Sotah 17a) records Rabbi Meir’s teaching that tekhelet “resembles the sea, the sea resembles the sky, and the sky resembles the Throne of Glory.” Gazing at the tekhelet can lift our thoughts beyond the mundane to the sacred.

So why are most modern tzitzit all white? The precious dye for tekhelet came from a rare sea creature, known in the Talmud as the chilazon (sea snail), a dye that became too expensive and difficult to obtain as Jews were exiled from the land of Israel in ancient times. In the 19th century, Rabbi Gershon Henoch Leiner, the Radziner rebbe, revived the tradition for his followers by identifying the techelet as a blue dye from the cuttlefish. 

But what about the other threads of the tzitzit? Must they be white? Sephardic Rabbi Uriel Romano explains that common white threads are simply an Ashkenazic custom. In the Mishneh Torah, no less an authority than Maimonides taught: “If a garment is entirely red or green, or any other color, the fringes that are usually white should be of the same color as the garment.” This idea reflects the talmudic principle of zeh Eli v’anvehu — “This is my God and I will beautify Him” (Exodus 15:2). The rabbis interpreted this as a call to enhance every mitzvah aesthetically, and that can extend to color (Bavli Shabbat 133b). Sephardic authorities like Rabbi Yosef Messas actively encouraged colorful tzitzit, seeing them as part of the mitzvah’s beauty. 

These days, more and more white tzitzit are starting to burst into color. Many non-Hasidim are adopting the tekhelet as a more authentic biblical practice. Sometimes the different colors have a practical origin: the Israeli military rabbinate issues green camo-tzitzit for soldiers who choose to wear them. At other times, the color choices are symbolic. Rabbi Hanna Tiferet Siegel and artist Shonna Husbands-Hankin originated the inclusion of a green thread to symbolize our ties to the earth. Some people have tied a silver thread next to the tzitzit in one corner of their tallit to honor the women who have fought for equal prayer rights at the Western Wall. 

The haftarah for Sh’lach presents a contrasting color to the blue thread in the form of a scarlet cord in the window of Rahab, a woman on the margins of society who hid two Israelite scouts sent by Joshua  (Joshua 2:18). The scouts tell her to place the red cord in her window as a sign to the Israelites to spare her and her family when they conquer Jericho. While the blue thread of tzitzit urges us to look up to the heavens and divine ideals, the red thread of Rahab is earthy, marking a bond of loyalty and family, but also recalling blood and conflict. The red thread also figures prominently in the story of Tamar (Genesis 38:28-30). The connection of red threads to these biblical heroines has inspired some women to use red threads as part of tzitzit. 

Fringes in a rainbow of symbolic colors may not be your grandfather’s tzitzit, but they are a great example of the creative ways in which each new generation of Jews generate meaning from ancient traditions.