Reply To: Techeiles 🔵❎🐌☑️🐟

I don’t know why the Rosh and the Rif don’t bring down the braisa. It could be that since it is merely a description it doesn’t qualify as “halacha”. But in the absence of any other explanation of what the braisa is doing, we have to assume that it is describing the chilazon, kipshuto. Go look at a picture of a murex trunculus and think how you would describe it to someone. If you are intellectually honest, I don’t think “it looks like a fish” and “it is the color of the sea” would be high up on the list. Yes I know that when it is covered in sea fouling it is indeed the color of the sea. But it is very unlikely that the braisa would describe a creature by some external thing which b’etzem has nothing to do with the creature. And anyway, any creature covered in sea fouling will be that color. So that is tantamount to the braisa saying that if the chilazon was painted yellow then it would be yellow.