Purim - 5776

Purim - 5776

Rabbi Hal Miller

Tie A Yellow Ribbon

(Reminder: It is traditional that on Purim we read "Purim Torah". These are fashioned in

the same way as regular divrei Torah, but are humorous, nonsensical, and often just

plain silly. Any "rulings" of law herein are expressly declaimed as being jokes, not serious....

Oh, and bear in mind you're supposed to be a little schicker when you read it. --HM)

Those of you who have been following this series over the past fifteen-plus years are

aware of the "Halacha" series I have been writing for Purim each year. This year, our

discussion topic is the halachos of colored ribbons.

Some of us are very black-and-white. Just ask my wife and she'll tell you: that would be

me. I only watch black-and-white movies, in fact I only like the beginning and end of the

Wizard of Oz. Even my dog is half-black and half-white. But I am not the norm. Most people

seem to prefer color, whether just a splash, or the whole swimming pool. However, the

spectrum is too wide to cover entirely from one view of the prism, so we will separate

the wavelengths into visible ranges.

One of the places we find color is in ribbons. We here explore what that means, and

what the halacha is governing these colored ribbons. Such ribbons tend to fall into

one of four categories, which we will refer to as Marketing, Military, Competitive, and

"Oak Tree." There are also hybrid instances of some of these. We will survey each

class, then try to discover what they have in common in order to understand these laws.

But first, a brief mention of colors in general, or at least as relevant to the Torah. We

find numerous mentions of color, ordinarily without any explanation as to what each

individual hue means. We see "gold" and "silver" all over the place, normally in the

context of valuable metals, or simply value in any context. An example of other colors

is in Shemos 26:1: "You shall make the Tabernacle spread of ten panels, twisted flax

and turquoise wool, and purple wool, and scarlet wool." Another example, Bamidbar

[15:38], "And they shall place upon the tzitzis of each corner a thread of turquoise

wool." In Megillas Esther, [1:6] we have, "There were hangings of white, fine cotton, and

blue wool, held with cords of fine linen and purple wool, upon silver rods and marble

pillars, the couches of gold and silver were on a pavement of green and white, and

shell and onyx marble." And of course, there are volumes written on the meaning of the

rainbow. Why? What do these colors indicate?

Rabbi Moshe Wisnevsky, in the Kehot Chumash, gives some kabbalistic answers.

Scarlet is the red of the fire of love for G-d that is in our soul. Turquoise is the color of

the sky, to remind us of His majesty and infinity, inspiring awe. Purple is a combination

of scarlet and turquoise, love and awe, to remind us of our current separation from

closeness to G-d. Linen is white, to allude to our basic love of G-d.

Elsewhere we see explanations of the blue thread in tzitzis, alluding to the sea, sky,

and Throne of G-d.

All well and good, but other than allusions, does any of this apply to the laws of

ribbons? Let's look at our categories.

The first category is Competitive. This is a Personal-Gain goal. We wish to attain or

obtain something. Someone has declared that I am the best at something. We see

this commonly in sports, where people strive to prove themselves one of the top three

in some physical event. For this they are rewarded, if successful, with a gold, silver,

or bronze medal on a colored ribbon.

The second category is Military. This is a Personal Sacrifice goal. Someone honors

us for some act we performed for which we were not seeking reward. In theory, at

least, if someone merely performs their job, they are rewarded with their pay, but if

they perform at a higher level that they were asked, they are rewarded with a bit of

colored ribbon, sometimes one color, mostly though multi-colored.

The third category is Marketing. This is a Persuasion goal. We want to convince

others to accept a position we hold, whether that leads to their buying some item,

voting for some candidate or issue, or helping us perform some task. Here we are

speaking of prizes awarded to a product or service, intended to tell consumers

that this particular one is better than the other similar ones out there. As in the

competitive world, this is typically either "gold medal" or "blue ribbon".

The fourth category is what I termed "Oak Tree", or Bumper Sticker. This is a

Placard goal. We are advertising something. It may be evident, but in most

situations, the purpose is actually coded by the color of the ribbon, and people

must already know the chart relating colors to meanings in order to appreciate

the ribbon. These are not "awarded", but self-applied.

Now that we know the four "P" goals for our categories, what are the laws?

-- First, there is a "set order of colors."

First place is always blue. Except, of course, when it is gold. This lack of consistency,

dating back to the time of the ancient Greeks, can be tied to their destruction of the

Temple. In Greek law, blue (the color of the sea, which reminds us of the sky, and thus

the throne of G-d) represents ultimate power. We honor this rule even today, with the

techeiles, the blue thread on the tzitzis on each corner of our tallis. Unfortunately for

the Greeks, they lost the war to the Maccabees, who established the new rule placing

gold in first, both because of the covering of the Ark and Table, and because it was

more popular with Greece's enemy, Rome. Some say that the color gold is more

correct because it represents the most valuable naturally-existing material. Those

who support blue properly point out that platinum and other materials are usually even

more valuable. Thus, although we know the origin of this debate, we do not know the

real basis. A potential answer is that blue would apply outside the land of Israel, and

gold within the land, given that Israel is the location of the Temple.

Second place is red, unless it is silver. While it is handy to say, "same reasons", that

would not be correct. Third place is white, except when it is bronze. We can explain

these inconsistencies consistent with the blue-gold dichotomy, and understand all of

the metal-colors to apply in Israel, and all of the rainbow colors applying outside.

There are numerous other colors in the order, but since nobody pays attention to any

competitor after third place, we need not worry about them here. Interestingly, in no

case other than electrical resistor value coding do we see the order of colors match the

rainbow, the only natural order.

This law protects the Personal Gain goal, in that the awardee of this ribbon is expected to

prominently display it on the wall for all to see and fawn over.

-- Our second law is that "it's the thought that counts".

The French emperor Napoleon, around 1817, wanted to improve the morale in his

army. He hit on the idea of giving a tiny piece of colored ribbon to various soldiers as

recognition and reward for a job well done. This ribbon was roughly an inch in length,

and the color depended on what Napoleon happened to have at the time. He did not

hand out too many, in order to keep the recipients' club exclusive. The problem here

was jealousy.

U.S. Army Colonel David (Mickey) Marcus found a slightly different use, when he led

the combined Jewish forces in the 1948 war that gave birth to the country of Israel. He

gave a small ribbon to the leaders he selected as officers, to enable the enlisted

soldiers to know whose commands to rely upon. Of course, it also enabled the Arab

soldiers to know who to shoot first.

-- Our third law is that "if a little is good, a lot must be better."

When one nowadays thinks of a military member in uniform, one things of what is

called the "fruit salad", a chest full of brightly colored, varied colored ribbons, each

of which was awarded for some highly valorous act, like surviving a 90-day school

or showing up for work on time for at least a year. The primary example of this law

was the self-appointed "Field Marshal, President-for-Life" Idi Amin Dada, late of

Uganda. Look up any photo of him in his self-styled uniform.

The second and third laws promote the Personal Sacrifice goal. Nobody is interested

in seeing this conglomeration of colors, most of which are for the sole purpose of

decoration, and most of which do not "go together" stylistically.

-- Our fourth law is that "in some cases, you can award things to yourself or your

friends."

This is typically found in marketing. If I want you, the potential purchaser, to realize

that my product is obviously your best choice, I can label my product with an award.

I can call it the best option for you, but unless there is a large picture of a gold medallion

or a replica of blue ribbon, you are not likely to pay much attention. I can create my own

judging organization, for the sole purpose of selecting my product as best in class.

Although this may sound like a Personal-Gain goal, it is in fact a Persuasion goal

entry. The only additional rules to this law are that if someone else has already picked

a color or medal for their competing product, you need to find either a different awarding

organization, a different year, or hold the opposite opinion on the metal-versus-color

debate. If they picked blue ribbon, you go with gold medal.

-- Our fifth law is that," without centralized control, people tend to think that they can get

away with rewriting rules to suit their personal needs."

In 1973, Tony Orlando (with his female backup singers, known as "Dawn") released a

record called, "Tie A Yellow Ribbon". The song's story was about a man being released

from prison, taking the train back to his hometown, and hoping his girl would not have

found someone else in the intervening years. The song quickly became very popular as,

right at that time, the US military prisoners of war were coming home from Vietnam. This

may have been the luckiest any singer ever got with regard to making a song into a

mega-hit. As in the song, people throughout the country placed yellow ribbons in any

context and any place, representing their pleasure over the release of the POWs. One of

the many ways this was done was a magnetic "yellow ribbon" designed to be stuck

onto the rear of an automobile.

Of course, people forget quickly. While very popular during the lead-up to the POW release,

a couple of months later the yellow ribbons were forgotten. Manufacturers had millions

of these items, and suddenly no market, so they changed the color, and reissued them

with different purposes. Suddenly, the millions of "ribbons" were displayed everywhere

again, in hundreds of colors. Nobody had any idea what any of the colors signified, and

in many cases it may be that there was no significance at all, other than decoration.

This law supports the Placard goal, allowing people to display a colored ribbon for

any purpose they deem fit, or even for no purpose at all. In fact, many people using the

same color for widely different purposes is acceptable under this law. Since the placards

are not "awarded", there are no jealousy issues. You can have as many as you want.

As noted above, there can be hybrids of these goals. For example, nothing prevents

use of a placard ribbon for marketing. This is something akin to the lawn sign approach

to elections, where everyone "votes" in advance of the election by placing a sign on their

front lawn, supposedly to convince their neighbors that the colors of the sign somehow

mean that their candidate is a better choice. But, as a friend of mine once noted, "I don't

vote with my lawn."

Another hybrid is the county fair. While many readers have never been to such an event,

they were popular all over in the days when agricultural pursuits were considered

honorable trades. Now, sadly, they are limited to rural areas, yet there they still thrive.

Ribbons handed out at these fairs are usually for food items that are fleeting. Just

because I made a great lemon pie will not mean much, as the judges have already

eaten it, so the ribbon has nothing to hang upon. It does, though, indicate that my lemon

pie business might be worth patronizing, based on an award from a presumably-neutral

agency. The fact that I have a really fat cow might interest a meat packing company, but

not for long unless I can show that I actually have a lot of them.

There are other uses for colored ribbon, such as gift-wrapping, giving stability to a kite,

streamers behind a bicycle to show great speed, etc., but there are no halachas in

these areas.

We see our laws demonstrated in the Megillah of Esther. Chapter 1, verse 6 reads: "There

were hangings of white, fine cotton, and blue wool, held with cords of fine linen and purple

wool, upon silver rods and marble pillars, the couches of gold and silver were on a

pavement of green and white, and shell and onyx marble." The Midrash Rabbah

(Esther 2:7) describes this. "R'Bibi said, the color of techeiles. R'Yitzchak said,

clothes that officers wear." But R'Shmuel bar Nachman took a negative view of the

colors, referring to the "fine linen and purple wool" as meaning a wicked person, the

king Achashveirosh.

Purim Sameach!