Negaim, Chapter 13, Mishnah 1. The chapter opens with a mishnah that is essentially a filing system. Everything that has been taught about nigei batim, the tzaraas that appears on the walls of a house in Eretz Yisroel, is now sorted into a fixed list of outcomes, so that the whole subject can be held in the mind at once.
"Asarah batim heim": the mishnah tallies ten houses. Nigei batim can unfold in ten different ways, and each way carries its own halachic ruling. Before taking them one at a time, here is the procedure that will keep resurfacing throughout the list. Where a nega in a wall calls for action, the kohen orders the afflicted stone pulled out of the wall (choletz), the plaster around it chipped away (kotzeh), a fresh stone set into the gap, and the place coated over with new plaster (tach). The house then waits out an additional week.
Houses One and Two: The First Week
The kohen came at the start and saw a problematic discoloration, adamdam or yerakrak. At the end of the first week he returns and finds one of two happy results. "Hakeihah barishon," the color has faded and lost its intensity: that is house number one. Or "haholeich lo," the nega has disappeared altogether: that is house number two. In both cases, "kolfo v'tahor": he peels away that area of the wall, and the house is tahor. Nothing more is required of it.
Houses Three and Four: The Second Week
Those same two turns of events can also show up a week further on. "Hakeihah basheini": the discoloration weakened by the time the kohen returned after the second week, and that is the third house. "Haholeich lo": it vanished completely, the fourth house. Here too the surface of that spot is peeled off, yet because the nega survived two full weeks, taharah must now be actively brought about: "kolfo v'toein tziporim," the house requires the service of the birds.
The Ritual of the Tziporim
The Torah lays out that avodah in Vayikra, perek yud daled, beginning with pasuk mem tes, toward the close of parshas Metzora. "V'lokach l'chatei es habayis": to cleanse the house one brings "shtei tziporim," a pair of birds, "v'eitz erez," cedar wood, "u'shni tola'as," wool dyed crimson, "v'eizov," and hyssop, a plant that grows close to the ground. One bird is shechted: "v'shachat es hatzipor ha'echas el kli cheres al mayim chayim," into an earthenware vessel already holding mayim chayim, spring water flowing from a source. Then "v'lokach es eitz ha'erez," he gathers the cedar, "v'es ha'eizov," the hyssop, "v'es shni hatola'as," the crimson wool, and "v'es hatzipor hachayah," the bird that is still alive, "v'taval osam," dipping them all "b'dam hatzipor hashchutah uv'mayim hachayim," in the blood of the shechted bird mixed with the spring water. "V'hizah el habayis sheva pe'amim": seven sprinklings are directed at the house. The pasuk then sums up the cleansing, "v'chitei es habayis": the house is purged through the blood, through the mayim chayim, through the live bird, through cedar (which comes from a towering tree), through hyssop (a humble growth low to the earth), and through the crimson thread. Finally, "v'shilach es hatzipor hachayah," the surviving bird is released "el michutz la'ir al p'nei hasadeh," beyond the city, out over the open field, "v'chiper al habayis v'taheir": kaparah is secured for the house for whatever aveirah drew the tzaraas to it, and the house becomes clean. This is the avodah of the tziporim to which our mishnah keeps returning.
Houses Five and Six: Spreading in the First Week
"Haposeh barishon" opens the next pair. Should the nega have expanded by the close of the first week, the kohen applies the remedy taught in the preceding perek: "choletz v'kotzeh v'tach," the stone is taken out, the surrounding plaster is chipped away, a substitute stone goes into its place (a step the mishnah takes for granted) and the spot is replastered, "v'nosein lo shavua," and the house is given yet another week. Two results can follow. "Chazar, yinatetz": should the nega come back, the house is torn down, the fifth house. "Lo chazar, toein tziporim": if it stays away, the house needs the bird service we just read in the Torah, the sixth house.
Houses Seven and Eight: Standing, Then Spreading
"Omad barishon u'poseh basheini": through the first week the nega held steady, and by the close of the second week it had expanded. Again the response is "choletz v'kotzeh v'tach": the stone bearing the tzaraas is taken out, the plaster around it is chipped off, a new stone is inserted and covered over, "v'nosein lo shavua," with one further week granted. Note where we now stand: at the finish of a third week.
That deserves a moment's attention. Nearly all forms of tumas tzaraas cap out at two weeks. On a person, the single case that runs the opposite way is a burn or a sore, michvah and shchin, upon which a baheres has settled; those are decided within one week alone. Everything else, nigei begadim included, can stretch to two weeks. Nigei batim alone, as the masechta already pointed out earlier, are able to reach a third week, and our case is precisely that: steady in week one, spreading in week two, so the stone was extracted, the wall scraped, a replacement stone set in and plastered, and another week allotted.
At the end of that third week: "chazar, yinatetz," if the nega returned, the house is demolished, house number seven. "Lo chazar, toein tziporim," if it did not return, the house is purified with the birds, house number eight.
Houses Nine and Ten: Standing Through Both Weeks
"Omad b'zeh uv'zeh": the nega neither faded nor spread, but simply stood unchanged through the first week and again through the second. Standing for one week alone only earns the house another week of waiting; standing through a second week is treated like spreading. So once again, "choletz v'kotzeh v'tach v'nosein lo shavua": the stone is removed, the area is scraped, the replacement is set in, the spot is plastered, and a further week is given, which likewise brings this case to a third week.
"Chazar, yinatetz," if the nega comes back at the end of that week, the house is demolished, house number nine. "Lo chazar, toein tziporim," if it does not come back, the house is purified with the ritual of the tziporim, the cedar wood, the hyssop and the crimson wool, house number ten.
A Summary of the Ten
- Faded after the first week: peel away the spot, and the house is tahor.
- Gone after the first week: peel away the spot, and the house is tahor.
- Faded after the second week: peel away the spot, and the birds are required.
- Gone after the second week: peel away the spot, and the birds are required.
- Spread after the first week, and after the treatment it returned: demolition.
- Spread after the first week, and after the treatment it did not return: the birds.
- Stood the first week, spread the second, and after the treatment it returned: demolition.
- Stood the first week, spread the second, and after the treatment it did not return: the birds.
- Stood through both weeks, and after the treatment it returned: demolition.
- Stood through both weeks, and after the treatment it did not return: the birds.
If the Nega Reappears
The mishnah ends with two final rulings that apply to every case in the list that concluded with tziporim. "Im ad shelo tiheir b'tziporim nir'ah bo nega, harei zeh yinatetz": if the kohen has already ruled that the house needs only the bird ritual, but before that ritual is performed the nega is seen again, the house is demolished. Whenever the birds were called for and the tzaraas returns before they are brought, the verdict shifts to netitzah.
"V'im mishetiheir b'tziporim nir'ah bo nega, yeira'eh b'tchilah": but if the ritual of the birds was already performed and the house was thereby purified, and only afterward a nega appears, it is not treated as a returning nega at all. It is regarded as an entirely fresh case, inspected from the beginning, and the whole process, with all ten possible outcomes, starts over from the start.