זאת תהיה תורת המצורע, “This shall be the law of the person afflicted with the skin diseases discussed in the previous chapters, etc.” the very word מצורע contains a hint that describes why, in most instances, such a person has been afflicted with this disease. It is because he bad-mouthed fellow Jews. The word is a combination of מוציא שם רע, “he called someone by a bad name.” Compare Talmud tractate Erchin folio 16. We also find that the Talmud attributes the demise of four people who had been guilty of this sin as losing their claim to an afterlife; they are: Bileam, Doag, Achitofel, and Geychazi, the disciple of the prophet Elisha. (Compare details in the Talmud tractate Sanhedrin folio 106. [That chapter deals with people who have or will forfeit their claim to an afterlife. Ed.]Solomon in Kohelet,5,5, also deals with this subject when he wrote: אל תתן את פיך לחטיא את בשרך, “let not your mouth bring guilt on your flesh;” which sin did he had in mind? The sin of badmouthing fellow Jews. Solomon referred to the same sin in Proverbs 18,21, when he said: מות וחיים ביד לשון, “death and life are within the power of the tongue.” Death is liable to follow abuse of the power of speech, whereas life is at the disposal of people who meticulously observe the Torah and study it. The Torah is the remedy with which the sin of evil gossip can be atoned for. It is known as the עץ חיים, “the tree of life.” We know this also from Solomon, who said in Proverbs 15,4: מרפא לשון עץ חיים, “the tree of life can heal (the harm caused) by abusing one’s power of speech.” Intensive Torah study prevents a person from becoming guilty of using his power of speech. The guilt of לשון הרע, evil gossip, is considered as greater that that of being guilty of shedding innocent blood. When one is guilty of the latter, one had only killed one life, whereas when one is guilty of evil gossip, one is guilty of killing at least three people, the one who engages in it, the one who listens to it, and the one about whom this evil gossip has been spread. We find an illustration of this in Samuel I 22, where King Sha-ul killed all the priests resident in the city of Nov because he had listened to the false accusations spread against them by Doag. Sha-ul was killed on account of that sin as we know from Samuel Il 1,9: עמוד נא ומותתני כי אחזני השבץ, “stand over me and finish me off, for | am in agony and barely alive;” whenever we encounter the expression שבץ, it refers to the priestly garments, as we know from Exodus 28,39: ושבצת הכתונת שש, “make the fringed tunic out of fine linen.” Concerning Doag, the slanderer, in this story we have it on the authority of Psalms 52,7 that he was killed in this world and deprived of the after life, i.e. גם אל יתצך לנצח יחתך וגו', “also G–d will tear you down for good, and root you out, etc.” The Talmud in tractate Erchin, folio 15, states that the sin of tale-bearing is greater than murder, incest or idolatry.

והובא אל הכהן, “and he will be brought to the priest.” We read this as if it had been written in the past tense, i.e. ובא אל הכהן, “he had come.” The reason is that there was no one who could have brought him, as everyone had been warned not to associate with him in any manner. Compare Leviticus 13,46: בדד ישב מחוץ למחנה מושבו, “he must dwell in isolation, his residence must be beyond the boundaries of the camp.”

ולקח למטהר שני צפרים, “and he will take for the person to be ritually cleansed two birds;” according to the Talmud in Erchin folio 16, the offering matches the sin for which it is to atone, i.e. just as birds engage in constant useless chatter, so the tale-bearer to be cleansed now had done something which had demeaned his power of speech to something no better than that of a bird.

ושחט את הצפר האחת, “the priest is to slaughter one of these two birds;” why was one of the birds slaughtered and the other one was let go and sent off into his domain? This symbolised the lesson that if the person now getting his atonement would perform sincere penitence, he would again become a useful member of society, fit to be associated with.

ונתתי, “I will give;” the Lord said to the Jewish people: see how different you are from the nations of the globe; when the former sin, I first punish them, as we know from Genesis 12,17: וינגע ה' את פרעה ואת ביתו “the Lord afflicted Pharaoh with a plague and his house" when I have occasion to strike anyone of you with a plague, I warn them by first sending a plague to the sinner’s house, and garment before striking his flesh. (Compare our verse here.) Why would I do this, seeing that the stones and the timber have not committed any sins against Me? I do this in order to give you a warning that worse is to come if you do not heed My warning. Before I sent Sancheriv to exile the ten tribes, I first let him conquer all the countries surrounding yours, so that you would take notice and mend your ways. Compare what the prophet Tzefaniah wrote in Tzefaniah 3,6: הכרתי גוים נשמו פנותם, החרבתי חוצותם מבלי עובר נצדו עריהם מבלי איש מאין יושב. “I wiped out nations, their corner towers are desolate; I turned their thoroughfares into ruins, with none passing by; their towns lie waste without people, without inhabitants.” This is how G–d sends warnings to His people of what might befall them unless they mend their ways by afflicting their possessions before afflicting them. [The prophet spells all this out in subsequent verses. Ed.] In verse 55 of our chapter, the afflicted house and subsequently the afflicted garments of a person, are cited as warnings of physical afflictions to follow if the warnings were ignored. If the warnings were heeded by the owner of those houses or garments mending their ways their flesh will not become affected. We know this from what is written in chapter 15 verse 2: איש כי יהיה בו זב וגו', “when any man has a discharge emanating from his sexual organ he is ritually contaminated.” This is also what Solomon had in mind when he wrote in Proverbs 19,29:נכונו ללצים שפטים, ומהלמות לגו כסילים, ”punishments are prepared for the scoffers, beatings for the backs of the fools.” G–d is quoted by Solomon as having said that He prepared these methods of disciplining Man already before He even created Man himself.