אל משה ואל אהרן, “to Moses and to Aaron.” The reason why Aaron has been mentioned here is that it is he, i.e. the priests, who decides if to declare the afflicted person as suffering from tzoraat or not. He decides who is ritually pure and who is not.

אדם, a person, i.e. man or woman, minor, male or female.

בעור בשרו, “on the skin of his flesh;” as will be explained in greater deal forthwith, i.e. an eczema either on his head or his beard. (compare verse 20) at this point the Torah had to mention the skin of his flesh;

שאת, an elevation of the skin; when looked at in the shade it appears to the onlooker as if higher that the skin exposed to the sun.

ספחת, an adjective describing the nouns שאת or בהרת. There are subcategories to both שאת and בהרת. An example of nouns that have such adjectives of varying degrees is found in Samuel I 1,37: ספחני נא אל אחת הכהונות, “please attach me to one of the priestly duties.” [Descendants of the High Priest Eli, who had been condemned to become beggars. Ed.]

לנגע צרעת, “to the plague (similar to) leprosy;” the are of this affliction is white looking flesh. Compare Exodus 4,6 מצרעת כשלג, “an eczema white as snow.” It is also written: ומראה הנגע עמוק לבן, “the appearance of the eczema is a deep white.” (Source not found)

והובא אל אהרן הכהן, “he is to be brought to Aaron the Priest.” Even against his will, if necessary.או אל אחד מבניו, “or to one of his sons,” even if they are deformed to the degree that they cannot perform sacrificial service in the Temple.

אחד, the letter א has the vowel patach.

הכהנים, “the priests;” excluding the descendants from a marriage forbidden to priests and therefore have lost their status permanently. How do we know that all the Israelites are included? Answer: from the words “or one of,” which includes anyone who is a member of the Jewish people. If so, what is the point of the Torah having written: “from among his sons the priests?” It is to teach you that only the priests can give a ruling concerning ritual purity and ritual impurity. Not even the Supreme Court can do so. Are then all priests experts by birth? The system works as follows: When the problem of tzoraat arises, an expert who has studied the subject is consulted. The priest accepts the superior knowledge of this expert, and makes his ruling based on what he has been told by the expert who has examined the afflicted person. It is irrelevant whether the priest is truly familiar or not with the symptoms the Torah has taught us.

ושער בנגע הפך לבן, “and the hair in the stricken area has turned from black to white.” This is a sign that the affliction has become stronger and the afflicted area attacks the healthy flesh surrounding it. Elderly people experience that their hair turns white as time progresses. However, if the hair had turned white already before the area had been declared as a נגע צרעת, white hair is not a sign of ritual impurity, seeing the change in colour had not been related to the skin’s discolouration. This is what our sages had in mind when they said: “when baheret precedes the manifestation of white hair this is a sign that the person is ritually contaminated; if not, he is ritually pure.” (Sifra)

ואם בהרת לבנה היא, “but if the bright spot is white on the skin;” but it is not so white that the appearance of the afflicted area is as if recessed under the skin; as is written: “and its hair has not turned white;” ועמוק אין מראה, “and its appearance is not deeper, etc.” Rashi writes concerning these words, that he does not understand their meaning. What he meant was: seeing that its appearance as white, how is it possible that it did not look deeper?Some commentators say that the words ועמוק אין מראה mean that its appearance is not like the appearance of skin which has been afflicted with שחין, the plague known from Egypt as the skin breaking out in boils. (Torat Kohanim on verse 21) This would mean that the affliction while neither lower nor higher, appears as level with the remainder of the skin.

ושערה לא הפך לבן, and the hair which formerly had been black had not turned white; the letter ה in the first word ושערה (here, as opposed to verse 20) does not have the dot that we would have expected if it were to mean: “its appearance.”

והסגיר הכן, “and the priest will lock him up;” at the end of another seven days the priest will understand if there has been a further expansion of the afflicted area. When someone observes a condition constantly, he would not recognise minor changes; but if he had not looked at that area for a period of seven days, it is much easier to judge if there had been a change.

וראהו הכהן ביום השביעי, “when the priest looks at it on the seventh day;” he does not wait a whole seven days before inspecting the affliction again. From this verse we learn the principle that in the Torah even part of a day is considered as if it were a whole day.

עמד בעיניו, “has remained unchanged;” the area that had been strongly inflamed had not weakened, and the areas that had been relatively mildly inflamed had not become more inflamed.

שבעת ימים שנית “a second period of seven days of waiting.” The first “seventh” day, counts as a whole day in both directions. (Sifra)

והנה כהה הנגע ולא פשה הנגע בעור וטהרו, “and behold, if the plague had dimmed and the plague had not spread;” the priest declares the afflicted person as ritually pure.”If you were to ask why the Torah appears to repeat itself, seeing that it is obvious that if the symptoms had not spread, and the afflicted person is declared ritually pure, then if the symptoms had diminished he must certainly be declared ritually pure? You have to understand the words: ולא פשה, “and it did not spread,” as applying to the result of the priest’s inspection after the first seven days. When at the second inspection it turned out that not only had the affliction not spread but it had even diminished, only then does the priest declare that person as ritually pure, i.e. as cured. It is not possible to understand the words: “the afflicted area did not increase” as applying to the second period of seven days because Rashi there had explained already that as long as the afflicted person had not been healed he remains not only potentially ritually impure, but he remains absolutely ritually impure. Concerning the healing process, i.e. the afflicted person’s progress toward ritual purity, the second inspection, Rashi says clearly that the appearance of the affliction, i.e. that it had not diminished, is proof that he remains impure (pending) and if it had spread he is definitively impure. Concerning his ritual purity, the Torah writes: (14,3) והנה נרפא נגע הצרעת מן הצרוע, “and behold if the plague of tzoraat that the afflicted person suffers from has been healed;” as soon as this has occurred the afflicted person can leave the place where he had been locked up, i.e. even though his symptoms have not disappeared. All that is required is that on the second inspection after the second period of seven days the symptoms have not spread. והנה כהה הנגע, “and behold the symptoms of the affliction have diminished;” even though one might have thought that any change [even for the better,] is proof of a new affliction, and that the person would be declared as ritually contaminates; in order to forestall such erroneous thinking, the Torah added the word: והנה, “and lo and behold!”

וטהרו, “he [the examining priest Ed] declares him as ritually pure.” He does so by making this declaration by mouth.

וכבס בגדיו, the now ritually pure person will immerse his clothing, [seeing that they had become contaminated by his having worn them in his state of the plague, Ed.] Naturally, if he had to immerse his clothing, it is understood that he also has to immerse his body in a ritual bath, (seeing there had been doubt if he had remained pure during the period when he had been locked up he might not have not been careful not to become ritually unclean in a way unrelated to his plague) following this, the process of purification is complete,.וטהר

ואם פשה תפשה אחרי הראותו, “but if the scab spread after he had shown it to the priest, even immediately;

והיא הפכה, “and it had changed colour;” the word והיא here is spelled with the letter י and not with the letter ו; [as in verses 4,7 and 8. Ed.]

צרעת נושנת היא, “it is an old plague,” it had only appeared to have healed by new skin covering it. Beneath that new skin the flesh had remained raw and moist. The Torah had to inform us of this so that we would not think that the surface of the skin is the only determining factor. That is not enough for the priest to declare the afflicted person as ritually pure. (Compare Rashi)

ואם פרוח תפרח, “if these symptoms show up in different parts of his skin;” if different parts of his skin seem to break out in white spots as if flowering;”

מראשו, “from his head down;” not on his head; ועד רגליו, “all the way down to his feet;” excluding the feet themselves;

לכל מראה עיני הכהן, “as far as it appears to the priest’s eyes;” this excludes a priest whose eyesight is defective; (Rashi) Why did the Torah only exclude a priest who has defective eyesight?, Why did it not also prohibit such inspections on a very cloudy day when everyone’s vision is impaired? This did not have to be spelled out as it is logical. (Compare verse 5) where the word: בעיניו, “as it appears to his eyes,” has already implied that any impediment to the priest seeing clearly prevents such an inspection from being performed and to have legal validity. An alternate interpretation: the words above mean that the inspection must be performed in parts of the body which are clearly visible, not in the armpits, private parts, etc. In connection with this our Rabbis coined the saying: האיש נראה כעודר ומוסק זיתים, והאשה כעורכת ומיניקה את בנה, “a man looks as if busy picking olives, whereas the woman appears as if getting ready to nurse her son.” These are similes describing when normally hidden folds in one’s skin become exposed due to the nature of that person’s activity. [The Rabbis used elegant language to refer to respective private parts of men and women. Ed.]

צרעת הוא, “it is the affliction we have been discussing.” The reason why the Torah here uses the masculine pronoun is that it refers to בשר חי in verse 10 which is masculine.

או כי ישוב, “or the raw flesh reverses its appearance, etc.” this refers to what the Torah had described in verses 1015, especially in verse 13.

או כי ישוב, “refers to the extremities of the limbs like the tips of fingers or toes which had alternately becoming visible as normal and as diseased. [The Torah had taught in verse 13 that if the entire surface of someone’s skin is afflicted, such a person is ritually pure. It follows therefore that when the healing process begins, some skin will no longer be afflicted, i.e. he will then have to become ritually unclean when the priest sees this and acknowledges it. I have added this, as not all my readers may have paid attention to the verses not dealt with by our author as he assumed that his audience was familiar with them. Ed.]

והנה מראה שפל, “and behold its appearance is as if lower than the skin’s surface;” How do we know that what is true for the appearance remaining level with the skin adjoining it is treated by halachah as the same as if it appears raised? To teach us this, the Torah wrote: ושפלה איננה מן העור, “but it does not appear lower than the rest of the skin.” (verse 21)

ושפלה איננה מן העור והיא כהה, “and it does not appear to be lower than the skin surrounding it;” why did the Torah have to write the words: והיא כהה, “and it has diminished in intensity?” The reason is because we have had that same expression used when the priest made his second examination. (verse 6) Some commentators understand this expression as referring to the word: איננה; we find a similar construction in Psalms 9,19: תקות ענוים תאבד לעד, “the hope of the afflicted will not forever be lost.” [This line must not be understood as a positive statement, instead as a plaintive question or reassurance that “of course this hope will not be lost forever. “ Ed.] The verse should therefore be understood as follows: “even though the symptom of the affected skin does not appear lower than that surrounding it, but the intensity of the discoloration has not diminished, this is sufficient reason for the priest to place the person in isolation, even if the hair in that area has not turned white; in other words, if the intensity of the discoloration did diminish, it is clear that the person afflicted will be declared ritually pure.

והיא כהה, here too the word: והיא, is spelled with the letter י before the letter א, just as in verse 10.

נגע הוא, “it is a plague.” The word הנא is read as having the vowel chirik. It is in the feminine mode as it describes either the word: בהרת or שאת, both of which are feminine nouns.

ואם תחתיה תעמוד הבהרת, “but if the bright spot stays unchanged in its place;” even though it did not diminish, the afflicted person is declared as ritually pure, seeing the cause of the affliction had been the rising on the skin of the boil, or the burns that that person had suffered; as long as the area of the plague had not increased in size it is not a fully fledged plague.

או בשר, “or when flesh, etc.;” there is no difference between how halachah treats either a burn on the skin or a boil caused through internal swelling. The reason, why in spite of this, the Torah appears to treat it as two different phenomena, is because it wishes to teach that if either of these phenomena are present in smaller sizes than the minimum size to qualify as a plague, these two phenomena combined are not to be considered as big enough combined to result in our viewing them as evidence of a plague. This has been stated in the Talmud, tractate Chulin, folio 8. The minimum size is half the size of a certain kind of bean known as פול.

ומראה עמוק מן העור, “and its appearance is as if deeper than the skin;” how do we know that when it appears as level with the surrounding skin or higher that the same rule applies? This is why the Torah had added in verse 21: ושפלה איננה, “but not lower than the surrounding skin;”

לא פשתה בעור והיא כהה, “it had not spread on the skin, and had become dimmer in appearance;” the word כהה is used as complementing the words לא פשתה, i.e. “it had not spread and not become dimmer.” (Compare our commentary on verse 21 in connection with שחין)

ואיש או אשה כי יהיה בו נגע בראש, “and a man or awoman who display signs of a plague on the head; (in the case of the woman))

או בזקן, or in the beard, (in the case of a man;)

ובו שער צהוב, “and there is yellow hair on it;” the skin on which hair growth is usually rougher than the skin on which no hair grows. Therefore, when yellow hair appears it is a sure sign that the flesh beneath it is dead and weak.

דק, “thin;” as a result, any hair that grows on that skin is also weaker and the growth is less dense.

נתק, “it is a scall;” the area on which hair grows is called נתק, the word being a derivative of the verb לנתק, “to tear out,” or “tear apart.”

וכי יראה, same as אם יראה, “if or when he sees.”

והתגלח, “he shall shave;” seeing that we find “shaving” also in connection with the priest when it is being performed by himself, (Leviticus 21,5), I might have thought that the person that had been afflicted with tzoraat, would also have to do this himself, the Torah employs the reflexive mode to show that anyone can perform this procedure. [He may use any means, not only a razor to perform this removal of hair. Ed.]

והתגלח, “he is to be shaved;” even if he is a Nazirite, and his term of being such has not yet expired. [Nazirites are forbidden to shave their hair. Ed.]

ואת הנתק לא יגלח, “but he must not shave off the scall;” Rashi understands this to mean that he must leave at last two hairs in place so that it can be determined if the area of the scall has expanded. The only way the status of the scall can be judged is by hairs

וכבס בגדיו וטהר, “and after having immersed his garments in a ritual bath he shall be ritually pure.” He will not confer ritual impurity through touch lying or sitting on something or having marital relations.

וטהר, he will also become ritually pure (if he is a Nazirite) although as such he should have let his hair grow wild, etc.

ושער שחור צמח בו, “and black hair had grown on it.” The letter ו at the beginning of the word: ושער is not conjunctive, but means “or.” Examples of similar uses of the letter ו are found in Exodus 21,15: מכה אביו ואמו, “if someone strikes father or mother;” and in Exodus 12,5: מן הכבשים ומן העזים תקחו, “you are to take from the goats or from the sheep; here too the words ושער mean: או שער, or black hair (grew).

טהור הוא, “he is ritually pure;” the reason is that the plague has not changed for the worse, or that growth of black hair proves that the follicle it grew out of is healthy, and the flesh surrounding it has not become weaker.

ואיש כי ימרט ראשו, “or if a man loses the hair on his head;” baldness of women is not mentioned here seeing that her head does not become bald. (Talmud, tractate Nedarim folio 30)

איש, from the fact that the Torah speaks only of איש, “a man,” how do we know that the same law applies to both women and minors? We know this from the superfluous word צרוע in verse 44. We know that this term applies to every category of human being. איש צרוע, “he is a man afflicted with tzoraat;” all the rules discussed in this chapter affecting such people apply to what follows.

והצרוע, “and the so afflicted person;” even if he happens to be the High Priest of whom it has been written in the Torah (Leviticus 21,10) that he must not let his hair grow loose nor rend his garments [as signs of mourning, Ed.] when faced with the problem discussed here he must ignore what is written in chapter 21. (Sifra)

בגדיו יהיו פרומים, “his clothes shall be rent;” this will serve as a symbol that he mourns over his errors which led to him becoming afflicted. (Ibn Ezra)

ועל שפם יעטה, “and he shall cover his upper lip.” This is to stop bad smell coming forth from his mouth which might affect people negatively. (Ibn Ezra)

בדד ישב, “he must dwell in isolation;” he must not have marital relations, as doing this would cause rot. (Talmud, Moed Katan, folio 7)

מחוץ למחנה מושבו, “his residence must be beyond the boundaries of the camp.” His residence itself is ritually impure;” the disease from which he suffers is contagious to people who conduct social intercourse with him. This is the source for the statement in the Sifra here that if a ritually unclean person sits under a tree and a ritually clean person stands in front of him (under the branches), the previously ritually clean person has become ritually contaminated. If the situation is reversed, the ritually pure person remains ritually pure.

מחוץ למחנה מושבו, והבגד, “his residence must be outside the camp. “And the garment;” [in spite of verse 46 being the conclusion of a paragraph Ed.], Rabbi Yossi from the Galil, claims that we learn from these two verses that the afflicted person’s clothes also require to be quarantined with him. [Possibly he disregarded the end of the paragraph, as the new paragraph commences with the conjunctive letter ו alerting us to the fact that this verse belongs together with the one preceding it. Ed.]

בבגד צמר או בבגד פשתים, “whether it be a woolen or a linen garment;” when the Torah speaks of garments, we always hear of woolen garments before linen garments are mentioned. The reason is that once a woolen garment has been completed, it is worth more than a linen garment. When the Torah speaks of a warp or a woof (in weaving) it always mentions linen before wool. The reason is that a woven linen garment is more valuable than a woven garment made of wool.

.או בשתי, “or in the warp;” the word שתי is not a genitive, construct mode, but a word in its own right, meaning “foundation”. Compare Psalms 11,3: השתות, “the foundations;” the reason is that the warp is the basis of all manner of weaving.

או בערב, “or in the woof;” the word is so called as it mixes the threads that have to be woven together.

בקרחתו או בגבחו, “whether the bareness be within or without.” These words refer to either the garment or the hide. It is similar to when people who come from a hairy region “baldy,” whereas they do the reverse with people coming from a region of smooth skinned people, “hairy.”

וכבס שנית, “it shall be immersed in a ritual bath a second time.” The second time in order to purify it, whereas the first time was in order to remove the residue of the plague.

לטהרו או לטמאו, “to declare him purified or contaminated.” If the priest who investigated the outbreak of the plague in a garment dies, another priest can declare him purified or contaminated.