Jerusalem—Ptil Tekhelet (www.tekhelet.com), an Israeli non-profit that promotes, educates and produces authentic tekhelet (blue-dyed fringes for the fulfillment of the biblical commandment of tzitzit), announced today that it is extending its pilot raffle program of providing up to 10 tallitot per month to engaged couples around the world. The contest has been extended for six months.

Starting on the first day of Elul (Sunday, August 16), engaged couples are invited to enter the drawing simply by sending their wedding invitations to Ptil Tekhelet at [email protected]. Ten winners will be selected monthly to receive a free wedding tallit tied with tekhelet.

“As these young people enter into marriage,” said Dr. Ari Greenspan, chairman of Ptil Tekhelet, “it is fitting that they usher in their new life by donning something at once so ancient and so new as the tekhelet strings. It’s the perfect metaphor for marriage itself.”

The practice of including a thread of Biblical blue tekhelet among the white fringes of the tallit was lost over a millennium ago. Its restoration in modern times was promulgated by the vision of revered rabbis such as Rabbi Gershon Henoch Leiner, known as the Radzyner Rebbe, and Yitzchak Isaac Halevi Herzog, the first Chief Rabbi of Israel. Thanks to present-day technologies and Rabbinic responsa, the Murex Trunculus snail has been identified as the source of this ancient blue dye.