One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
טֻמְאַת צָרַעַת
Defilement by Leprosy 2-4
Sefer Taharah · The three signs by which a blemish is judged, and how each one turns on something invisible: which came first, whether the thing can be framed, and whether there is an earlier examination to measure against
2
White hairs, long enough to be taken out with tweezers, and no fewer
1
Lentil of healthy flesh, squared, which is room for four hairs to grow
24
Tips of the limbs where healthy flesh conveys no impurity at all
7
Days of isolation before any spreading can count as a sign
Ch 2White hair, and the blemish that has to have caused it
- Two hairs, and the root decides. No fewer than two white hairs, each long enough to be pulled out by tweezers; one long and one short is pure, one black and one white is pure, and a hair whose base is dark with a white tip is pure, while a hair whose base is white with a dark tip is impure even where the white is the slightest amount. (2:1)
- Any shade of white, and no threshold of severity. Snow white or the weakest wash of whiteness imparts impurity alike, since they appear white, and two hairs count even when scattered with black hair between them, which does not reduce a blemish that is exactly the size of a gris. (2:2, 2:3)
- The hairs must stand in the blemish itself. Where a boil, burnt flesh, a bohak, or the healed skin of a boil or burn sits inside the baheret and the two white hairs stand in that, they are no sign, even though the baheret surrounds the whole arrangement, and the person is isolated as though the blemish had no sign; if those features later depart and the hairs are found in the baheret at the end of the first or second week, he is definitively impure. (2:4, 2:5)
- The baheret has to come first. White hair is a sign only where the baheret preceded it, inferred from the verse that it turned hair to white, so that where the white hair existed before the blemish the person is merely isolated. (2:6)
- Entrusted hair, and the blemish that cannot claim it. Where a baheret whitened hair and made a man definitively impure, then vanished leaving the white hair in place, and later another baheret returned to that spot, the hair is called entrusted hair and is not a sign, since that baheret must cause the change of color and not another baheret; where it is doubtful which came first, he is impure, and the Rambam records that this impurity appears to him to be of a questionable nature. (2:7, 2:8, 2:9)
RememberThe hair is white, the patch is a patch, and it counts for nothing, because the blemish standing there now did not do the work.
Ch 3Healthy flesh, and the frame that makes it readable
- A lentil, squared, in one place. Healthy flesh is a sign only at the size of a lentil when a square is imposed upon it, room for four hairs, two lengthwise and two widthwise, sitting in the center with the baheret surrounding it and a margin of two hairs or more to the edge; scattered specks the size of a mustard seed do not combine even inside one baheret. (3:1)
- Any color, and no verb of causation. Healthy flesh imparts impurity whatever its shade, red, black or white, provided it is not one of the four shades of whiteness that are themselves blemishes, and it is a sign whether it preceded the baheret or followed it, because concerning it the Torah does not state that it turned. (3:2, 3:4)
- It must be in the baheret and not in a boil. Where the healthy flesh lies within a boil, burnt flesh, a bohak or their healed skin inside the baheret, or one of those features surrounds it, adjoins it or divides it, it is no sign and the person is isolated; should those features depart so that the healthy flesh stands alone in the baheret at the end of the first or second week, he is definitively impure. (3:3)
- Growth of the healthy flesh yields purity. A baheret exactly a gris with healthy flesh exactly a lentil renders the person definitively impure, and if either is diminished he is pure, and if the healthy flesh increases he is likewise pure, since a baheret does not impart impurity through healthy flesh until it keeps a margin of afflicted flesh two hairs wide on every side. (3:5, 3:6)
- The priest must see it whole. A baheret at the tip of a limb with healthy flesh in its midst is no sign, because the healthy flesh divides the blemish so that one part streams down one side and one down the other, and the verse requires that the priest see it as a single entity; the 24 tips include the fingers and toes, the ear and the nose, and a flat surface the size of a gris on such a tip does impart impurity while a rounded one does not. (3:7, 3:8, 3:9)
RememberMore healthy skin makes him pure. Not because he recovered, but because the border that made the sign legible has been swallowed.
Ch 4Spreading, and the examination it is measured against
- Outward only. An increase imparts impurity at any size provided the new area is one of the shades that defile, and a bohak-colored increase does not count; growth within the blemish is not an increase, so a baheret whose inner healthy flesh shrank or vanished has not spread. (4:1)
- No increase without a prior isolation. An increase is a sign only after isolation, so where a person comes at the outset and the priest sees the blemish increasing before him he does not declare him definitively impure but isolates him until the end of the week and observes it then. (4:2)
- What the blemish may not spread into. An increase into a boil, burnt flesh, their healed skin, the head or the beard is no sign, since the verse speaks of spreading on the skin, though spreading into a bohak does count; where such a feature separates the increase from the blemish it is no sign, and if it departs so that they adjoin, the person is definitively impure. (4:3, 4:4)
- Arithmetic that refuses to net out. Where a baheret of a gris spread more than half a gris while about half a gris of the original disappeared, the person is pure even though what remains of the original and the increase together exceeds a gris; and one released from inspection whose blemish afterward increases even slightly is definitively impure, while a baheret that diminished and returned to its size after release leaves him in his purity. (4:5, 4:7, 4:9)
- Signs are interchangeable for staying impure. Where a man was declared definitively impure through white hair and the hair vanished but healthy flesh or an increase appeared, or through healthy flesh which vanished while white hair or an increase appeared, his impurity stands; and however he was declared impure, at the first look, at the end of either week, or after release, he is not pure until no sign at all remains upon him, neither the sign he was condemned for nor any other. (4:10, 4:11)
RememberGrowth is not a fact about the blemish. It is a fact about the difference between two examinations, and one examination proves nothing.