The Color Purple

I like to drill down into the text, and try to understand what G-d was thinking. Why, for example, is it important that, when the tabernacle (mikdash) was transported, it was covered with blue cloth?

So what? Why is that seemingly-irrelevant detail part of the founding document of Western Civilization?

Even more than this: not only does the text (Numbers 4) tell us that the Ark, the Table/Showbread, Menorah, Gold (incense) Altar and support tools were all covered in blue cloth, it then tells us that the Copper Altar was covered in purple cloth.

Why? Is there a simple and plausible explanation?

I think there is. And it runs as follows:

The blue cloth is there to remind us of the nature of these items: a person seeing these covered items, all in blue, would immediately connect them to the sky – to see that there is a divine connection between the mikdash, which, after all, is where G-d’s presence dwells among us, and the heavens above. The mikdash is a link to the divine, and all that it entails. So there is truth in advertising: even when not “in operation,” the mikdash is a visual reminder of the connection to the spiritual and energetic world, of our quest for elevating ever-upward.

But not everything is covered with a blue cloth! One item, the altar, is covered with a purple, argaman, cloth.

Why? Why is the altar a different color? And what does that color mean?

Well, for starters we could point out that the other items that make up the tabernacle/mikdash are essentially static. The Ark and the Table/Showbread and the Incense Altar and the Menorah require little or no actual service – they are essentially complete systems, even to the priests who maintain them (the Menorah was serviced daily, the Table weekly, and the Ark not at all). And the average citizen has nothing to do with them at all.

But the copper altar is the altar used for every offering brought by ordinary people. It is not static at all: the very purpose of the altar is its ongoing operations, to connect people to G-d through elevating our offerings upward. In other words, the altar is inherently and necessarily dynamic. The altar is not defined by what it inherently is: it is defined almost entirely by what is done with it. The altar’s core purpose is only fulfilled through the ongoing investment of outsiders.

The color purple is formed by combining blue and red – the color of techeiles, and the color red, which in Hebrew is Edom or Adamah (earth) or Adam (mankind). In other words, purple is the active investment of Adam toward techeiles, which is very much at the core of what the altar, the mizbeach is all about.

And there is a very interesting fact about how the color techeiles is made – from the classic snail. The dye when it is first made is NOT blue – it is purple! What makes it blue?

As per Grok:

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Here is a parallel and more linguistic answer:

The word for “purple” in the Torah is argaman. It is not used in the Torah until the description of the mikdash itself, so learning about its meaning from context is a dead-end.

But… if we look at the letters, we can see that argaman uses the letters from two separate words: oreg and min. And then the entire meaning becomes clear!

Oreg is used to describe only one thing: the clothing of the priests:

And there shall be a hole for the head, in the midst of it: it shall have a binding of woven (oreg) work round about the hole … And he made the robe of the efod of woven (oreg) work, all of blue. … And they made coats of fine linen of woven (oreg) work for Aharon, and for his sons.

Oreg is human investment in preparation toward holiness, since weaving is intense and careful and focused work. Weaving speaks of our own investment of time and energy and labor for a greater purpose. It is more than a little like an offering into which we have invested our own energies into creating! An offering, after all, must be fit to be offered to G-d, and it requires mindful and careful love and care over time.

The other half of the word, min, is first used for the first time that something is elevated upward – creating and sustaining life by irrigating the earth!

But there went up a mist from (min) the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

The very next use of this word is

And the Lord God formed man of the dust min the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

And both are echoed by a use much later in the Torah:

When the fall of dew elevated, there, over the surface of the wilderness, lay a fine and flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What(min) is it?” —for they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “That is the bread which G-d has given you to eat.

Min refers to elevation, one that creates and sustains life and builds a connection toward the heavens. And in this latter use, min is commonly transliterated as “manna,” a gift from G-d back to man, a reciprocal link of heavenly sustenance to support our own lives.

So the meaning of argaman, oreg+min, is simple: it is the sum of human investment creating elevation. Which is the essential quality of the purpose of the altar itself. The altar, after all, is only useful when offerings are brought, investments made by the populace toward creating connections between heaven and earth, G-d and man. Sky and Man, blue and red, make purple.

So the items covered in blue reflect the heavens. And the item in purple, the altar, reflects the way in which we can give of ourselves in order to create a direct upward link with the divine.

Mystery managed.

P.S. One neat corollary is that the priestly garments that are oreg are created by few people, but the net result is that everyone benefits through what priests do for the entire nation. This suggests that an offering on the altar, marked with argaman, creates a rising tide of holiness and connection to the divine for all the people, not just those who brought a specific offering.