Being extra conscious now of techeles, I'm noticing what other people are wearing, and it surprises me that so few people are wearing techeles. To me it seems a pretty simple choice: the researchers seem to have very solid proof that that the stuff they're producing is the real techeles mentioned in the Torah. And even if you say there's some doubt as to whether it really is techeles, what have you got to lose? At worst you've got a dye on your tzitzis that doesn't make them invalid; at best you're fulfilling an extra mitzva d'oraysa, every minute of the daylight hours, for which the reward is eternal!
Is techeles too expensive? Most people are prepared to invest a fair bit of money in hiddurim/optional extras, such as buying a top-of-the-range esrog for Sukkos, or tefillin with completely black straps. So if you're prepared to pay 200 NIS or more for a nice lulav/esrog set, with which you're going to perform a mitzva d'oraysa exactly once if you're lucky (this year 1st day Sukkos falls on shabbos, so the entire mitzva of lulav will be d'rabbanan this year) - why would you not spend 160 NIS on something that is a mitzva d'oraysa (even if you have some doubt), that you can do every single day, every minute of the daylight hours?
I don't really buy the financial argument; I'm guessing that the reason why more people aren't wearing techeles is partly because people haven't really thought that hard about it, and partly because it's perceived as a political statement: I know one charedi Rabbi who wears techeles, but tucks in his tzitzis so that he doesn't get ostracized by the rest of his charedi chevra.
I'm especially interested to hear if you are opposed to wearing techeles - why?
What do you think? Please
Later Edit: I have taken down the poll, because some immature, insecure person has obviously written a bot to skew the results. I mean, I may be very popular and loved, but even I doubt my ability to attract some 45 people within an hour to visit my blog, let alone vote in a poll... and funnily enough, all of them were "ideologically opposed to techeles".
This reaction is very disturbing, because it says to me that someone feels so strongly against techeles that they are willing to violate "midavar sheker tirchak" (last week's parsha!) in order to push a certain agenda.
Why? What is so insidious, so subversive about techeles, that someone should feel the need to wage a holy war against a mitzva of the Torah?
