Negaim, Chapter 14, Mishnah 8. The metzora's purification unfolds over a series of days: the sprinkling with the birds, the shaving, immersion, and finally the korbanos that complete his taharah. Our mishnah takes us to that final stage.
"Bayom hashemini": on the eighth day
The mishnah states that on the eighth day he brings his offerings. The Rav notes that this is precise: it applies specifically where he shaved on the seventh day. Then his korbanos come on the eighth. But if he delayed and shaved only on the eighth day, he brings his korbanos on the ninth, because the shaving, which is itself part of the process of taharah, requires ha'arev shemesh (the passing of the day into nightfall) just as immersion does. There must be a sunset between the shaving and the bringing of his korbanos.
The three animals
Three animals from the flock are offered on that day: a chatos, an asham, and an olah. The Torah's choice of words repays attention. For the chatos it specifies a kisbah, a ewe lamb, while both the asham and the olah are designated kesev. The metzora therefore brings two male lambs, one set aside as his asham and one as his olah, along with a single female lamb for his chatos.
The asham here is unusual. Throughout the Torah an asham is generally an ayil, a two year old ram, the exceptions being the asham of a nazir and the asham of a metzora. The difference between a kesev and an ayil is simply age: within the first year the animal is a kesev, and from the thirteenth month onward it is called an ayil, a ram. During that thirteenth month itself the animal is a palgeis, and there is a machlokes in Menachos whether its status is that of a kesev or of an ayil. In any event, the asham of a metzora is a kesev, and so is his olah.
The metzora who is poor
The Torah provides a leniency for a dal, a metzora who cannot afford the larger animals. He brings instead a chatas ha'of and an olas ha'of, two birds, torim or bnei yonah, one serving as the chatos and one as the olah.
The Tiferes Yisroel points out something that the Rav does not record here: even a poor man is not exempt from the lamb of the asham. The asham metzora must be brought in every case, from wealthy and poor alike; only the chatos and olah are replaced by birds.
The Rambam's closing words to Hilchos Tumas Tzora'as
The Rambam has a beautiful practice of concluding a section of halachos with words of hashkafah and mussar, and he does so at the end of Hilchos Tumas Tzora'as as well (chapter 16, in his final halacha). Some of what he says there we have already heard from him in his peirush hamishnayos.
He opens with the observation that the word "tzora'as" functions as a shared label, a single term borne in common by phenomena that bear no resemblance to one another. The white patch on human skin, the baheres, carries that name. According to the Rambam's shita, so does the shedding of hair from the scalp or from the beard across an area the size of a gris; this is likewise how the Rav explains nesek, and most meforshim take the same line. Rashi in Chumash appears to differ. He treats nesek as the designation of the affliction itself, without implying that any hair has been lost. As the Ramban reads Rashi, at considerable length, Rashi holds that a nesek is no loss of hair at all but a discoloration accompanied by the sprouting of yellow hairs in the places where hair grows, whether on the scalp or in the beard. The Ramban disputes this with great force and at great length, and settles on precisely the understanding we have been working with, that of the Rambam and the Rav, that a nesek means hair has fallen out. And beyond the afflictions of the body, a discoloration that appears in cloth, or in the walls of a home, also goes by the name tzora'as. There too the word is on loan: the Torah applies to fabrics and to buildings the very term it uses for a person who has been stricken.
Such a condition, the Rambam continues, is not miminhago shel olam; it does not belong to nature's regular course. "Ela os ufele hoyoh beYisroel kedei lehazhiron milashon hora": it came as a sign and a wonder to Israel, a caution against the sin of lashon hora. The man who speaks lashon hora sees the change begin in the walls of his house. Should he return in teshuvah, the house is purified. Should he cling to his wickedness until the house has to be taken apart, the affliction moves closer in, striking the fabrics of his home, the coverings he sits and lies upon. Teshuvah renders them tahor; persistence until they must be burned, as afflicted fabrics are, brings the change onto the garments he is wearing. Once again repentance cleanses them. And if he refuses to fall silent, until those clothes too are burned, his own flesh discolors, "veyistoreia," he becomes a metzora, driven out of the camp, marked out before all and dwelling in isolation, until he abandons the speech of the wicked, "shehi haleitzus velashon hora," scoffing and slander.
The Torah puts us on notice about this, says the Rambam, in the words "hishomeir benega hatzora'as," take care regarding the affliction of tzora'as, and then "zochor asher asah," a charge to bear in mind how Miriam was dealt with by Hashem while the nation was traveling. Consider her case. She was a neviah. The one she spoke about was Moshe, who stood far above her in stature and was younger than she in years; she had cradled him as an infant and had put herself in danger to rescue him from the water. Nor did she say anything truly derogatory: her error lay only in ranking him alongside the other nevi'im. Moshe himself took no offense, as the Torah attests, "veha'ish Moshe onov me'od." Even so, "miyad ne'enshah batzora'as," the punishment of tzora'as came upon her at once.
If so, kal vachomer for foolish and wicked people who pour out a stream of talk about matters too great and too wondrous for them, subjects they have no business discussing. Therefore, says the Rambam, anyone who wishes to set his path straight ought to keep his sitting far from such people and refrain from conversing with them, so that he not be caught in the net of the wicked and their foolishness.
He then traces the stages by which the scoffers and the wicked descend. At the start their mouths are filled with nothing at all, as Shlomo says, "vekol kesil berov devarim," the fool's voice comes with a flood of words. That chatter leads them to belittle tzaddikim, as the posuk pleads, "te'alamnah sifsei sheker hadoveros al tzaddik osok," may lying lips fall mute, those that speak insolently against a righteous man. Once accustomed to that, they begin to discuss the nevi'im and to cast doubt on their message, as it says, "vayihyu mal'ivim bemal'achei Elokim," they held the messengers of God in derision, meaning the prophets, "uvozim devarov umisas'im binevi'av," spurning His words and making sport of His prophets. And from there they arrive at speech against the Almighty Himself, Rachmana litzlan, denying the ikar, as the posuk records: "vayechapu vnei Yisroel devarim," they laid to the account of Hashem their God things "asher lo chein," that were simply untrue.
Next the Rambam cites the posuk "shosu vashomayim pihem," they aim their mouths at the heavens, and "ulshonom tahaloch ba'oretz," while their tongue goes strolling across the earth. He takes the verse as a portrait of this very sequence: what brought them to point their mouths heavenward? The tongue that had already been wandering about down below. It begins with aimless talk on the ground, and it ends with words fired at Shomayim.
This, he explains, is what the talk of the wicked amounts to, and it is bred by loitering at street corners, by taking a place in the gatherings of amei ha'aretz, and by haunting the houses where beer and strong drink are consumed. Among upright Jews and their tzaddikim, by contrast, conversation consists of nothing but Torah and wisdom, and therefore the Kadosh Baruch Hu stands behind them and grants them merit for it, as the posuk says: "Oz nidberu yirei Hashem," those who fear Hashem spoke together, each with his fellow, "vayaksheiv Hashem vayishma," and Hashem gave ear and listened, and a scroll of remembrance was inscribed in His presence for those who fear Him and hold His name dear. The Rambam closes with "Brich Rachmana desayan," thanks to the Merciful One whose help brought the work to its completion.
These are the ideas standing behind our entire masechta. Behind all the halachos of baheres and se'eir lavan and nesek and afflicted houses and garments lies one message: a warning against lashon hora and against foolish, careless speech.