Negaim, Chapter 14, Mishnah 9. Our chapter accompanies the metzora step by step through his purification, and this mishnah brings us to the climax of the whole process: the eighth day, in the Beis Hamikdash, when the asham is brought and its blood is prepared for the matanos that will be placed upon his body.
A correction, and a thought on lashon hara
One item needs setting straight before we begin. An earlier lesson cited a pasuk that the Rambam brings at the very close of Hilchos Tumas Tzara'as, and the citation came out wrong. The source is Tehillim, perek 73, verse 9: "Shatu bashamayim pihem," they have set their mouth in the heavens, "ulshonam tihalach ba'aretz," and their tongue roams over the earth. David Hamelech is portraying the people who traffic in lashon hara, and the words mirror precisely the downward slide that the Rambam sketches there. Nobody launches his career of speech by attacking what is holy. He starts with earthly, trivial matters, discussing them in ways he ought not to, and rung by rung his talk rises until his mouth is aimed at Heaven itself.
Where the halachos of this chapter are found
Our references to the Rambam have until now come from Hilchos Tumas Tzara'as. The subject matter of the present chapter, however, is codified elsewhere: in Sefer Korbanos, in Hilchos Mechusarei Kaparah. The term mechusar kaparah describes a person who has already immersed and yet still owes a korban before kodashim become permitted to him, and four such people belong to the group: the metzora, the zav, the zavah and the yoledes.
The first halacha there makes ideal background for our mishnah, and it gathers up much of what we have already studied. "K'sheyirapei hatzarua mitzara'aso," once the affliction has healed and the kohen has declared him tahor, his purification is carried out with cedar wood (eitz erez), hyssop (eizov) and crimson wool (shni tola'as), together with a pair of birds. All the hair on his body is then shaved off and he immerses. The Rambam leaves it out in this halacha, but our mishnayos taught that his garments are laundered on that day as well. "Achar kol zos," when all of this has been done, he departs from where he lives and enters Yerushalayim ("yikanes l'Yerushalayim"), and there he counts seven days. The seventh day brings a second full shaving, identical to the first, followed by another immersion, which leaves him a tvul yom, one whose immersion is behind him but whose sunset has not yet arrived. Nightfall comes, and on the eighth day he immerses once more, the tevilah our mishnah will take up, and only then are his korbanos brought.
The Rambam raises the difficulty himself: what does a further tevilah on the eighth day accomplish when he immersed only the previous evening? He answers, "Mipnei shehu ragil b'tumah": tumah had become this man's habitat. All through "yemei galuso," the stretch of time he spent expelled from the camp, whatever he touched turned tamei, and he simply stopped watching himself. It is entirely possible, then, that tumah reached him again after that immersion. So he immerses on the eighth day in the Ezras Nashim, in the room known as Lishkas Hametzoraim, and this is required even though he was never mesi'ach da'as, that is, even if his attention never lapsed from the taharah he acquired the night before (such a lapse would on its own have forced a fresh tevilah for kodashim).
The korbanos of the eighth day
The mishnah before ours listed what he offers on the eighth day: a chatas, an asham and an olah. The chatas is a kisvah, a ewe lamb, since chata'os are as a rule female, with only a handful of exceptions. Both the asham and the olah are a keves, a male lamb within its first year. A metzora of limited means, "v'hadal," substitutes two birds for the chatas and the olah, either torim or bnei yonah, both taken from a single species, one serving as a chatas ha'of and one as an olas ha'of. The mishnah left this unstated, but even the pauper cannot escape bringing a keves for his asham, which makes the asham metzora the one offering of his that can never be exchanged.
Coming to the asham: tnufah and smichah
Our mishnah now: "Ba lo eitzel ha'asham, v'samach shtei yadav alav, v'shachto." The kohen who is seeing this metzora through his purification comes over to the asham, rests both his hands upon the animal and slaughters it. The one acting throughout is the kohen, not the metzora.
The Rav fills in a stage the mishnah skipped. Tnufah came before the smichah, for the asham brought by a metzora requires waving while the animal is still alive, "ta'un tnufah chai," a halacha learned from the pesukim.
The Rambam, in the next halacha of Hilchos Mechusarei Kaparah, paints the picture. The metzora positions himself just outside the Ezras Yisrael, facing west, at the eastern entrance, standing on the threshold of Sha'ar Nikanor, the gate on the eastern side that divides Ezras Yisrael from Ezras Nashim. Every mechusar kaparah undergoing purification stands on that threshold, and it also served as the spot where a sotah was made to drink the mayim hame'arerim. The kohen takes hold of the living asham together with the log of oil that the parshah requires and waves them on the eastern side, following the pattern of all tnufos. Should he have waved them one at a time, the animal by itself and then the oil by itself, "yatza," the tnufah still stands. Afterwards, writes the Rambam, the asham of the metzora is carried over as far as the entrance ("ad hapesach"); the metzora reaches both hands into the azarah, smichah is performed on the animal, and it is slaughtered right away. Apparently the one performing smichah is the kohen. Note too that the Rambam does not use the singular "v'shocheit" but the plural, "v'shochtin oso," and they slaughter it. Our mishnah's "v'shachto" points to the kohen as the shocheit, whereas the Rambam's wording seems to leave the shechitah open to anybody at all, since even a zar may validly slaughter a korban.
The Ra'avad's objection: where was the tnufah done?
On the Rambam's account the waving takes place at a remove from the metzora, and only later is the animal carried over to the entrance. The Ra'avad protests. Commenting on the words about bringing the asham afterwards, he writes: "Amar Avraham: Ein kan achareichen," no "afterwards" exists here at all. The waving and the smichah occurred at one and the same location, the smichah following directly upon the tnufah. This, he adds, is the teaching of the Tosefta, in line with a correction he had already made earlier.
Two arguments are contained in this. One concerns location: was the tnufah done at some distance, as the Rambam holds, or at the exact place of the smichah, as the Ra'avad holds? The other concerns who actually does the waving. For the Rambam it is unmistakably the kohen by himself. Some meforshim on the mishnah understand that kohen and metzora waved as a pair, the metzora extending his hands through the gateway and raising the asham in partnership with the kohen; the Ra'avad may well hold this too, since once the animal has been brought near the two of them nothing else is practical, though he never states it outright. The Rambam certainly cannot hold this, for on his description the animal stands far away from the metzora.
Two kohanim receive the blood
"V'kiblu shnei kohanim es damo, echad bichli, v'echad b'yad." The blood is caught by two kohanim, one of them in a kli shareis, a mizrak, the other in his bare hand. The Rav supplies the derivation from the pasuk: the kohen takes of the blood and puts it "al tnuch ozen hamitaheir," on the ear of the man being purified. The placing of the blood is accomplished by means of the kohen's own body, his hand; accordingly, the receiving of that share of the blood must also be done with his hand.
"Zeh shekibeil bichli," the kohen holding the vessel, proceeds "v'zarak al kir hamizbei'ach," casting the blood against the wall of the mizbei'ach. The vessel is what the standard zrikas hadam demands, that avodah being the machshir of the korban: it is the act that renders the meat permitted in a korban that is eaten, and that makes the chalavim and the rest fit for the mizbei'ach. Since zrikah is the heart of the service, it is carried out with the mizrak, a kli kodesh.
"V'zeh shekibeil b'yad," the second kohen, whose hand holds the blood, then "ba lo eitzel hametzora," walks over to the metzora in order to place it upon his body.
The tevilah of the eighth day and Sha'ar Nikanor
"V'hametzora toveil b'Lishkas Hametzoraim." He immerses in the Metzoraim's chamber, which the Rambam locates in the Ezras Nashim, more exactly at its northwest corner. Maseches Midos taught us about the many chambers around the Beis Hamikdash serving all sorts of functions; this one evidently housed a mikveh for metzoraim.
"Ba v'amad b'Sha'ar Nikanor." From there he goes and takes his stand at Sha'ar Nikanor. Since the chamber lay in the Ezras Nashim, he now crosses to the gate that separates that courtyard from the Ezras Yisrael. This was the celebrated gate whose doors looked like gold although they were made of copper, glinting like gold when sunlight struck them. The story of Nikanor, who donated them, is well known: one of the pair was thrown overboard into the sea and came back to shore miraculously, and a number of nissim are recorded about these doors.
Rabbi Yehudah maintains, "Lo hayah tzarich tvilah": in his view the immersion of the eighth day is superfluous, "shekvar taval me'emesh," since he already immersed the night before, as the pasuk states, "V'hayah bayom hashvi'i y'galeach, v'chibes b'gadav v'rachatz b'saro bamayim."
The Chachamim hold otherwise: "Ho'il v'hayah oleh l'tumah," this person had been steeped in tumah, as the Rambam explained, so accustomed during his period of banishment to having everything he touched become tamei that he may not have preserved his taharah with sufficient care and may have contracted tumah after that immersion. The safek obligates him in a further tevilah. This is a chumrah of the Rabbanan, an extra immersion before the korbanos, and according to some Rishonim a tevilah of this kind may be demanded of him before he himself eats kodashim as well, not only for the bringing of his offerings.
The Rav's ruling: "V'halachah k'Chachamim." The metzora immerses again on the eighth day, mid'Rabbanan, before his korbanos are offered.