Negaim, Chapter 10, Mishnah 3. This chapter deals with the nesakim, the negaim that appear in the hairy areas of a person's body, on the scalp or in the beard. They are called nesakim from lenatek, to tear away, because through the nega the hair is loosened, falls out and is uprooted from its place. Unlike a nega on ordinary flesh, a nesek is not restricted to the four shades of white and their reddish admixtures; any abnormal coloration in those areas can be a nesek. A nesek can pass through two weeks of hesger, and it has two simanei tumah: se'ar tzahov dak, two thin golden hairs (Rebbi Akiva understands dak to mean short), and pisyon, spreading, which can only be established after the first week. Our mishnah examines the first of those simanim more closely: where in the nesek the golden hairs have to be found, and whether they must have come into being after the nesek or may have preceded it.
Rebbi Yehuda: the position of the hairs makes no difference
"Se'ar tzahov dak mitamei mechunash umefuzar, mevutzar veshelo mevutzar, hafuch veshelo hafuch, divrei Rebbi Yehuda."
Bear in mind that when we speak of hair as a siman in tzara'as, we always mean two hairs, shtei se'aros bemakom echad. Now the mishnah tells us that these golden, short hairs are mitamei in every arrangement: mechunash, when the two hairs stand together in one spot, or mefuzar, when they are scattered apart within the discolored patch. Mevutzar, when they are gathered in the very center of the nesek, or shelo mevutzar, when they are not in the center but off toward its edges.
And then the third pair: hafuch veshelo hafuch. Recall that by a baheres on the flesh, the baheres must come first and then turn the black hairs white; the baheres has to be mehapech, the agent of the change. Here, says Rebbi Yehuda, that requirement does not exist. It makes no difference whether the discoloration of the nesek was there first and turned the hairs golden, or whether the golden hairs were already standing there and the nesek then appeared and spread around them. Either way the siman counts.
Rebbi Shimon: only hafuch, and his kal vachomer
"Rebbi Shimon omer, eino mitamei ela hafuch." Rebbi Shimon holds that the golden hairs are a siman tumah only if they came about after the nesek, that is, only if the discoloration is what turned them golden.
He supports this with a kal vachomer: "Amar Rebbi Shimon, vadin hu", and vadin here means a kal vachomer. "Mah im se'ar lavan she'ein se'ar acher matzil miyado, eino mitamei ela hafuch." Consider se'ar lavan on a baheres. There, no other hair can rescue the person: a baheres may contain a thousand black hairs, and still, if two black hairs have turned white, that is a siman tumah and the metzora is muchlat. Se'ar lavan is therefore the stronger siman, and nevertheless it is mitamei only when it is hafuch, when the baheres preceded the hair and caused the change.
"Se'ar tzahov, shese'ar acher matzil miyado, eino din shelo yitamei ela hafuch." By the golden hair of a nesek, another hair does rescue the person: the presence of black hair breaks the tumah of the nesek. As the Tiferes Yisroel puts it, even where the nesek contains two golden hairs, if there are two black hairs together with them the person is tahor. So this siman is the weaker of the two. If the stronger siman requires hafuch, surely the weaker one should be restricted at least as much, and be mitamei only when it is hafuch.
Rebbi Yehuda's answer from the language of the pesukim>"Rebbi Yehuda omer, kol makom shetzarich lomar hafuch, amar hafuch." Rebbi Yehuda answers that the Torah is precise in its wording: wherever the requirement of hafuch was meant to apply, the Torah said so explicitly. By a baheres it speaks of the hair having hafach lavan, having turned white.
"Aval hanesek, shene'emar bo velo hayah vo se'ar tzahov, mitamei hafuch veshelo hafuch." But regarding the nesek the Torah writes only that there was no golden hair in it, without any mention of the hair having turned that color. The pasuk speaks simply of the presence or absence of a golden hair in the nesek, not of a change brought about by the nesek. Therefore the siman is mitamei either way, whether the hair took on its color after the discoloration appeared or whether it was golden before the nesek surrounded it.
The Rav rules that the halacha follows Rebbi Yehuda: the requirement of hafuch does not apply to a nesek at all. Two golden hairs in a nesek render the person tamei wherever they stand within it, gathered or scattered, in the center or at the edge, and whether the nesek produced them or found them already there.
"Rebbi Yehuda omer, kol makom shetzarich lomar hafuch, amar hafuch." Rebbi Yehuda answers that the Torah is precise in its wording: wherever the requirement of hafuch was meant to apply, the Torah said so explicitly. By a baheres it speaks of the hair having hafach lavan, having turned white.
"Aval hanesek, shene'emar bo velo hayah vo se'ar tzahov, mitamei hafuch veshelo hafuch." But regarding the nesek the Torah writes only that there was no golden hair in it, without any mention of the hair having turned that color. The pasuk speaks simply of the presence or absence of a golden hair in the nesek, not of a change brought about by the nesek. Therefore the siman is mitamei either way, whether the hair took on its color after the discoloration appeared or whether it was golden before the nesek surrounded it.
The Rav rules that the halacha follows Rebbi Yehuda: the requirement of hafuch does not apply to a nesek at all. Two golden hairs in a nesek render the person tamei wherever they stand within it, gathered or scattered, in the center or at the edge, and whether the nesek produced them or found them already there.