Leah,
The issue of coming up every 70 years is difficult in light of the fact that no such "periodicity" (to quote Rav Herzog) is known in all the animal kingdom. It is assumed that the Talmud is speaking in hyperbole and that it means that the creature is rarely found outside of the ocean. In fact, when the Rambam quotes this passage, he replaces "comes up once in 70 years" with "and it is found in the salty ocean." So clearly he understood the phrase along the lines I mentioned. (There may also be some confusion regarding the various passages from the Talmud relating to the "chillazon." If, as we believe, it means a snail, then not every reference to snails applies to the specific sea-snail that was used for tekhelet. Thus the Talmud's description of "chilazonot" coming out in the mountain area after the rain is an accurate description – but not of sea-snails.)
Your other question, where did they get tekhellet in the desert – is interesting. It would have been a commodity that was traded in ancient times and could have been obtained by traders (like the caravan of Ishmaelim that brought Yosef down to Egypt). Of course there is also the possibility that the Jews took it with them from Egypt, just like the gold and silver. In fact, there is a strange pasuk, when it talks about what the Jews asked from the Egyptians, along with gold and silver, "dresses" are mentioned. These clearly must have been expensive fabrics given the context. That may point to the fabrics that were later used in building the mishkan.
Best regards,
Baruch
Baruch Sterman, Ph.D.
Ptil Tekhelet Foundation
www.tekhelet.com
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/08/2013 07:57PM by mlb.
