Halakhah su Ezechiele 1:78

According to Rashi of Blessed Memory the color of Techelet resembles the firmament as it blackens towards evening which is in agreement with Rambam of Blessed Memory who says that the Techelet must lean towards and have a fringe of blackness. And behold, since G-d whose name is blessed has helped us to clarify the signs through which the Hillazon can be recognized, and I have spoken with many of the Sages of the Torah and spiritual giants of Israel and they have agreed with my words, it is incumbent upon all those who have strength to search for it, to bring merit to the nation of Israel with the precept (Mitzvah) which has been forgotten from Israel many hundreds of years. And anyone who merits to this will be blessed by the Lord, the G-d of Israel. And I in my lowliness have begun this process and have sent to the shores of the Mediterranean sea. This creature has been brought to me and it is of the species that are called inkfish what include 19 different kinds. It appears to me that in one of these species can be found all the signs that are mentioned previously as explained according to the words of our sages of Blessed Memory also its blood which is black as ink is under my hand. Nevertheless all the chemists have not been successful in extracting its blood. And if G-d will help me to come to the shores of the Mediterranean sea and be able to attain it unlike it is still alive if G-d so desires I will try with the help of G-d who is blessed to extract from it the color of Techelet. And I will pray to G-d who is blessed, that just as he has given me merit to living merit for Israel with words of Torah whose expositions are few, these being the remnants that occupy themselves in the order of Teharoth (laws of ritual impurity) and with the help of G-d due to the merit of my fathers I have set in order the entire order of Teharoth - And with the help of G-d I have published the Tractate of Kelim (laws regarding ritual impurity of vessels) which has been favorably received amidst the great sages of Israel and the wise men of the Torah, so too I shall pray with G-d and that he helps me complete the entire order and publish it, and I shall dwell in his tents forever. And so too regarding this Mitzvah of Techelet which has none that seek it out, may G-d help me to bring merit to the many and may it stand for me and my children and my children's children that the words of the Torah vanish not from my lips and the lips of my children and the lips of my children's children so says G-d from now until forever.

One must put her legs together so that they look like one leg. The reason for this is that the separation of one’s legs exposes one’s material side and represents the pursuit of worldly matters. Thus, we keep our feet together in prayer just like the kohanim who, in their ascent of the altar, would walk heel-to-toe to avoid spreading their legs. Furthermore, putting one’s legs together symbolizes the annulling of the powers in one’s legs, demonstrating that we have but one desire, to stand before Him in prayer. The Sages learn this from the angels, of whom it is said: “Their legs are a straight leg” (Yeḥezekel 1:7), meaning that their legs were placed so close together that they appeared as one leg (Berakhot 10b; y. Berakhot 1:1; see Maharal, Netiv Ha-avoda §6).

It is like a king who acquired two slaves, both with one and the same contract and price. He decreed that one would eat from the king’s stock for free, and that the other would have to work for his food. So the latter sat wondering and confused [toheh ve-boheh].¹⁴A pun on the Hebrew tohu ve-bohu – “unformed and void” – in Gen. 1:1. He said, ‘Both of us were acquired by one and the same price and contract, yet that one is fed from the treasury. But I, if I don’t work, I don’t eat. I am astonished! Likewise the earth sat wondering and confused.¹⁵Ber. R. 2:2.

And the fourth is because the perfect table “which is before the Lord” is the upper level where the soul is nourished. There are four upper levels which, like the four animals of “the chariot” among the upper beings, correspond to the four winds of the world, and to the four elements in the beings below in the lower world. These levels are the intellectual banquet which is called “the life of the world to come.” And our rabbis before us called it “the table of three legs,” as it is said in the Talmud, Massekhet Ta’anit.⁴⁰B. Ta’anit 25a: “In the future the righteous will eat at a table of gold which has three legs.” And why didn’t they call it “the table of four legs”? It was their way of referring to the three patriarchs, and that’s why they said “of three legs;” and they were concealing the fourth. LikewiseEzekiel concealed the place of the eagle, as it is written, “Each of the four had the face of an eagle;” he did not specify what its position was.⁴¹Ez. 1:10. In his prophetic vision of the four heavenly creatures, the prophet specifies that each had four faces: a human face, a face of a lion on the right, the face of an ox on the left, and the face of an eagle. But unlike the other faces, Ezekiel does not state specifically where on the creatures’ bodies the eagle’s face was. And from his example our sages z”l learned to conceal an implied fourth when they just said, “The patriarchs are indeed the chariot”⁴²Ber. R. 47:8. and “one refers to the patriarchs only as three.”⁴³B. Berakhot 16b. But it is well known that no chariot has less than four wheels. For this reason one saint used to say while reciting the Amidah, “the God of David and Builder of Jerusalem,” to mention in his prayer the whole chariot in all its completeness.⁴⁴In other words, he added the Messiah, the descendent of King David and rebuilder of Jerusalem, who has yet to come and complete the four. And therefore I call this book “Table of Four” for that level where our souls are attached: where they are nourished and take pleasure to the degree appropriate to their level. This is the perfect table for the righteous one.Completing the chariot makes it a table of four, for there the souls of the patriarchs are hidden away. And accordingly, having achieved this status, the place where the vessels [of their souls, i.e., their bodies] are buried is called Kiryat Arba’ (“The City of Four”), that is, Hebron.⁴⁵R. Bahya is probably also suggesting that the name of the patriarchs’ burial place not only alludes to the number four as a symbol of perfection and completion, but also to the re-union of the soul with her source implied in the word “Hebron.” Hebron sounds like the root of the Hebrew word for “to unite” or “to attach” that R. Bahya just used to refer to the place “where the soul is attached,” “sham hithabrut ha-nefesh.” So when a person is eating and drinking at his table to sate his soul to sustain his body with its four elements, his mind should ramble about upward onto the pure “table which is before the Lord,” that is, the four levels which hover over the refined soul who merits each and every one according to her level. There is no doubt that by this, all of his bodily activities are accounted to a person as if they were intellectual ones, that he himself be counted among the elite, and his soul “be bound up in the bundle of life”⁴⁶I Sam 25:29: tzurah be-tzror ha-hayyim, an expression which has come to mean “eternal life” as in the prayer for the dead El Male Rahamim.even while he is still alive; fit for the whole world to be created for his sake. As our rabbis z”l taught in a midrash: “’For this applies to all mankind,’⁴⁷Eccl. 12:13. that is, all the world in its entirety was created only in conjunction with this man.”⁴⁸B. Shabbat 30b.

Your feet should be placed next to each other as if they were only one, to resemble the angels, of whom it is said: ''And their feet were straight feet."¹³Ezekiel 1:7. In Hebrew, regel means one foot. Which means their feet [ragleihem] appeared as one foot [regel]. Your head should be bent slightly, and your eyes closed, so as not to gaze at anything. If you are praying from a Siddur¹⁴I.e. a prayer book. do not remove your eyes from the Siddur. Your hands should be upon your heart, the right hand upon the left. You should pray wholeheartedly with fear, reverence and humility, as a poor man standing at the door;¹⁵In the manner of a beggar pleading for alms. and pronounce the words with concentration and exactness. Everyone should pray according to his [accustomed] form [of prayer], whether it be Ashkenazic or Sefardic,¹⁶There are various texts of the Siddur prayers. or another, [for] they are all based on sacred origin. However do not intermingle words from one form with another, because the words of each form are numbered and counted, based on important mystical concepts, and nothing should be added or subtracted from them.¹⁷One should follow the text of the Siddur he is using.

The Position of One's Limbs at the Time of Prayer, containing 4 s'ifim
One should position one's feet next to each other as though they are one, in order to imitate angels, as it written regarding them: “their feet were a straight foot” [(Ezekiel 1:7)], which is to say their feet appeared as one foot. (Some say when one stands to pray one should take three steps forward in the way of coming close and approaching a matter that must be done.) (Rokeach)

The root of the commandment is revealed in the verse: It is in order that we always remember all of the commandments of God. And there is no better reminder in the world than carrying the seal of the Master on the clothes that one wears at all times, as a person is [always attentive] to his clothes. And this is what is stated in the verse (Numbers 15:39), "and you will recall all the commandments of the Lord." And they, may their memory be blessed, said (Midrash Tanchuma, Korach 12) that the word 'tsitsit' alludes to the six hundred and thirteen commandments (in the numerical equivalent of the letters) when combined with the eight strings of the fringes and their five knots. And my heart also tells me that there is a reminder and allusion here that the soul and body of man all belong to God, Blessed be He. As the white portion corresponds to the body which is from the land, which was made from the snow, which is white, as we find in Pirkei D'Rabbi Eliezer 3, "From where is the land from? From the snow that is under the Holy Throne.” And the threads [also] allude to the body, as the matter that they said, that the initial formation of a body is like threads. [It is] as they, may their memory be blessed, said (Niddah 25b), "Rabbi Amram said, 'The two thighs are like two strands of crimson, the two forearms are like two strands of crimson.'" The blue (tekhelet), the appearance of which, is like the appearance of the sky hints to the soul which is from the upper beings. And they hinted to this in their saying (Menachot 47b), "What [makes] tekhelet different than all other colors? Because tekhelet is like the sea, and the sea is like the sky, and the sky is like the Throne of Glory, as it is stated (Exodus 24:10), 'And they saw the God of Israel, etc.' and it states (Ezekiel 1:26), 'The Throne appeared as sapphire stone'" - and the souls of the righteous are stored underneath the Throne. And because of this, they said (Menachot 39a) that we wrap the string of tekhelet around the white, as the soul is above and the body below. They said that we make seven or thirteen windings [around the white strings] to allude to the heavens and the divisions between them. And it is as they said (Menachot 39a), "It is taught, 'One who wishes to do fewer should not do fewer than seven, nor should he add more than thirteen, corresponding to the seven heavens and the six air-spaces between them.'"

The fiftieth day of the count of the Omer is the holiday of Shavuot. The prayer service is like the holiday of Passover, rather we say "the Holiday of Shavuot, the time of the giving of our Torah". We say full Hallel. We take out two Torah scrolls and read in the first one of five [sections] from "The third month" until the end of the order. The Maftir is read in the second scroll, "On the day of the first fruits". As Haftorah we read the chariot of Ezekiel, and end with the verse "and the wind took me up."