Negaim, Chapter 1, Mishnah 6. This mishnah brings the first perek to a close, and it completes a subject that the perek opened a few mishnayos earlier: what happens when the signs of tzara'as appear on Shabbos.
Back in Mishnah 4 we were taught that no inspection takes place while the day itself is still in progress: the Kohen does not look at a nega betoch haShabbos. Should the affliction, or the simanim that accompany it, make their appearance on Shabbos, the ruling is ma'avirin le'achar haShabbos, the viewing is deferred until the day has ended. To this the Mishnah attached a pointed remark, veyeish badavar lehakeil ulehachmir: a deferral of this sort may end up working in the man's favor, and it may just as easily end up working against him.
Mishnah 5 laid out the side that eases matters, the cases of keitzad lehakeil. Picture a nega whose simanim, if seen while Shabbos was still in progress, would have compelled the Kohen to declare the man a muchlat, a metzora in the fullest sense. Since the inspection had to be put off, by the time Sunday arrived those simanim had already receded. Nothing was left for the Kohen to rule upon, and the man stood tahor.
Our mishnah is the exact mirror image: keitzad lehachmir. Here the delay costs him. In every case that follows, had the Kohen looked on Shabbos he would have pronounced the man tahor. Because the examination took place on Yom Rishon instead, the Kohen found him tamei.
White hairs that were not yet white
One of the simanim that renders a nega tamei is two white hairs growing inside the white patch. The mishnah's first cases all revolve around those two hairs.
- Lo hayah bo sei'ar lavan venolad lo sei'ar lavan: over Shabbos no white hair was present in the nega whatsoever, and by Sunday white hair had sprouted. An inspection during the day itself would have turned up nothing but dark hair, with no siman of tumah in sight. Now, on the strength of the se'aros levanos, this man is a metzora in every respect.
- Hayu shechoros vehilbinu: the hairs had been black over Shabbos, and by the following day they had turned white.
- Achas shechorah ve'achas levanah vehilbinu shteihen: two hairs are required for the siman, so a lone white hair paired with a black one would not have brought about chalut on Shabbos. By Sunday, both of the pair had turned white.
The same applies to the length of the hairs. A white hair only counts as a siman if it reaches a certain measure. The Rambam writes that it must be long enough to be trimmed with a scissor; others explain that it must be long enough to bend over and reach its own root. Anything shorter is not a hair that conveys tumah.
- Ketzaros vehe'erichu: over Shabbos the white hairs fell short of the necessary length, and by Sunday they had grown to it, so they now function as se'aros levanos that convey tumah.
- Achas ketzarah ve'achas arukkah vehe'erichu shteihen: here a single hair possessed the required measure while its partner did not, and by the following day both of them did. Such a man is a muchlat.
Barriers between the hairs and the nega that vanished
The two hairs only combine into a siman when they stand within the body of the original nega itself. Mishnah 5 dealt with barriers that were present on Shabbos and had disappeared by Sunday, which produced a leniency. Our mishnah reverses it: on Shabbos there was an interruption, and by Sunday the interruption was gone.
The mishnah lists the ways such an interruption can occur: nismach hashchin lishteihen o le'achas meihen, a shchin abutted both hairs or one of them; hikkif hashchin es shteihen o es achas meihen, the shchin encircled them; o chillko, the shchin ran between the two hairs so that they no longer formed a single unit of two hairs standing in one nega.
A word about these skin conditions. A shchin is a wound or sore in the skin caused by a blow or by illness, not by fire. A michvah is a wound produced by heat, a burn. Michyas hashchin and michyas hamichvah are the living, healthy flesh that appears within them, which in the framework of a shchin or a michvah are themselves simanim of tumah. And bohak is a white spot whose whiteness is fainter than even the dimmest of the four shades of white listed in the first mishnah of the perek: it is duller than the krum habaytzah, the membrane of an egg.
Any one of these, the shchin, the michyas hashchin, the michvah, the michyas hamichvah or the bohak, if it surrounded the hairs, touched them, or split between them on Shabbos, would have left the man tahor. But vehalchu lahem: by Sunday they had all cleared away, and nothing remained except the nega with its two white hairs. He is tamei, a metzora.
The michyah
A michyah is a patch of healthy flesh appearing inside the nega, and it too is a siman of tumah. To qualify it must be at least the size of an adashah, a lentil, it must be shaped as a square, and it must sit in the middle of the white area, which itself must be the size of a gris (or white mixed with red, as defined for tzara'as).
- Lo hayesa bo michyah venoldah lo michyah: on Shabbos there was no michyah, and on Sunday healthy flesh appeared within the nega.
- Hayesa agulah o arukkah vena'aseis meruba'as: on Shabbos the michyah was round, or elongated and rectangular rather than square, and by Sunday it had become square.
- It was min hatzad on Shabbos, off to the side rather than in the center, and by Sunday it was mevutzeres, sitting squarely in the middle of the kigris.
- It was mefuzeres, a scattering of separate dots on Shabbos, and niskantzu, they merged into one piece by Sunday. Now it is tumah.
Here too the mishnah lists interruptions in the michyah that were present on Shabbos and gone by Sunday: uba hashchin venichnas besochah, a shchin came and entered the michyah so that it was no longer a perfect square; hikkifah, it encircled it; chillkah o mi'atah, it cut through the michyah so that neither piece had the measure of an adashah, or it ate away at it from the outside until less than an adashah remained. And the same for all of them: the shchin, the michyas hashchin, the michvah, the michyas hamichvah, and the bohak, whose white is fainter than the krum habaytzah. On Shabbos one of them stood in the way; by Sunday it withdrew, and the michyah stands complete in the original nega.
The pisyon
The third siman is the pisyon, the spread of the nega. When the nega grows outward, that growth is a sign of tumah. The mishnah applies the same list here: the shchin, the michyas hashchin, the michvah, the michyas hamichvah and the bohak were cholkin bein ha'om lapisyon, dividing between the main body of the nega, called the om, and the new growth. On Shabbos there was a separation between the spread and the om, and the man would have been tahor. But by Yom Rishon that divider was gone, and the Kohen sees the nega spreading before his eyes, joined to the om, a genuine pisyon.
Harei eilu lehachmir. Every one of these is a stringency that came about only because the inspection did not take place on Shabbos but on Sunday. In each case the mitigating factor disappeared during the intervening day, and what confronted the Kohen on Sunday was the nega together with a siman of chalut: dark hairs that had turned white, a michyah, or a nega visibly spreading. That is how the postponement of the Kohen's visit, which in the previous mishnah rescued a man from being declared a metzora, can in these cases be precisely what seals his status as one.