One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
טֻמְאַת צָרַעַת
Defilement by Leprosy 14-16
Sefer Taharah · Which houses can be accused at all, the nineteen days and the demolition that follow, and the impurity of the ruined house, closing with the Rambam on lashon hora
2
Grisim, the length a blemish must reach before any house is impure
4
Cubits by four, the smallest house that can carry a blemish at all
8
Stones minimum, two to a wall, so every wall could bear a blemish
19
Days of isolation, since the seventh and thirteenth each count twice
Ch 14Which house can be accused, and how the owner must speak
- Two grisim, sunk into the wall. The blemish must be the length of two grisim, roughly a patch where six hairs grow across and twelve along, and rectangular; the signs are an intense green appearance, an intense red one, and spreading, and nothing counts unless the color lies below the surface of the wall, which is what the Torah means by shika'rurot. (14:1, 14:2, 14:3)
- Even a sage may not say it definitely. A man who knows beyond doubt that a blemish has appeared may not declare it; he tells the priest only that something appears to have appeared in his house, and the priest orders everything removed, down to bundles of wood and reeds, before he comes to inspect. (14:4)
- No windows are opened to find it. A closed house is not opened up so the blemish can be seen; if the affliction is not visible as things stand, the house is pure. The priest then leaves, stands beside the entrance rather than inside the house, under the lintel, or in his own house, and isolates it from there. (14:5)
- Four cubits, four walls, eight stones, and the ground. The house must be four cubits square or more, with four walls, built on the earth of stones, earth and wood; a round, triangular or pentagonal house is exempt, as is one built on a ship or suspended from four beams, though one built on four pillars is susceptible, and bricks and marble do not count as stones. (14:6, 14:7, 14:8)
- Where the affliction cannot reach. Jerusalem is exempt because it was never divided among the tribes, as are the Diaspora, the houses of gentiles in the land, and a house split between a Jew and a gentile or across the border; a woman's house, a partnership house and a study hall with a dwelling in it are all susceptible, and a house that lacked its measure of materials when the blemish appeared stays pure even if they are brought afterwards. (14:9, 14:11, 14:13, 14:14)
RememberThe affliction needs an address. Jerusalem belongs to everyone, which in this law means it belongs to nobody, and its walls never change color.
Ch 15Nineteen days, two stones for two, and the shared wall
- Three weeks that take nineteen days. Houses are isolated for up to three weeks, inspected on the seventh, thirteenth and nineteenth days, because the seventh belongs to the first week and the second and the thirteenth to the second and the third; the three week isolation is not stated in the Torah, and most of these laws came through the Oral Tradition. (15:1)
- Faded, unchanged, or spreading. A faded or vanished blemish means scraping the spot and a pure house; an unchanged one buys another week; one that spread or held its color costs the stones it sat on, the mortar beneath them, a trip outside the city and a full replastering, followed by a third week, and a blemish returning at two grisim after the plastering brings the whole house down. (15:2)
- Other stones, other mortar, and never lime. At least two stones come out; stones and mortar may not be moved from one side of the house to the other because the verse says other stones and other mortar; plastering is with mortar and not lime; and the replacement runs two for two, never one large for two or two small for one, though two may be brought in place of three. (15:3)
- The neighbor shares the loss and not the repair. Where the blemish sits on the wall between two houses, both owners remove the stones, both scrape the mortar and both bring other stones, but the owner of the blemished house brings the new mortar alone, learned from the singular verb in the verse; if the house must come down, only his own comes down. (15:4, 15:5)
- Purified like a person, sprinkled like a house. Living water in an earthenware container, two fowl, a cedar branch, hyssop and a crimson strand, exactly as for an afflicted man, except that a man is sprinkled seven times on the back of his hand and a house seven times on its lintel from the outside. (15:8)
RememberThe mortar is the tell. Damage is shared with the neighbor whether he likes it or not; the repair is charged to the man whose house it is.
Ch 16What the ruined house does, and why any of this happens
- A primary source, and its rubble with it. The blemished house is an av hatum'ah, and the stones, wood and mortar taken from it carry the same status, an olive-sized portion defiling by touch, by being carried, and by being brought under a roof; burning the rubble into lime does not release it, since the Torah called it an accursed tzara'at, and all of it goes outside the city. (16:1)
- Isolated from within, condemned from without. An isolated house defiles only from the inside, while one declared definitively impure defiles from its outside too, so that touching its back wall is enough; both defile by overshadowing, and a blemished stone carried past a man under a tree leaves him pure while the same stone set down beneath the tree makes him impure. (16:2, 16:3)
- Backwards is not entering. A pure person who goes in backwards, his whole body inside except his nose, stays pure, since the verse speaks of the one who comes into the house and the Torah imposed impurity only on entering in the ordinary way; walking in forwards makes him impure once his head and most of his body are through. (16:5, 16:6)
- Worn garments have a clock, carried ones do not. Clothes on the body stay pure until the wearer has been inside long enough to eat three egg-sized portions of wheat bread with what accompanies it, and the same measure covers lying, sitting and standing; a cloak folded over the shoulder or shoes and rings held in the hands are impure the moment he crosses, and a gentile or an animal entering in clothes leaves the clothes impure and itself untouched. (16:6, 16:7)
- The reason, stated at the very end. Tzara'at is a collective name for unrelated afflictions and is not a natural occurrence, but a sign given to Israel against lashon hora, moving inward from the walls to the leather furnishings to the clothes to the skin, with repentance purifying at every stage; the Torah closes by telling us to remember Miriam, who raised Moses, risked herself to save him, spoke no evil of him and only equated him with the other prophets, and was punished at once. (16:10)
RememberAlmost every ruling here turns on position rather than substance. The same man, the same cloak, the same room, and only the angle of entry decides.