Negaim, Chapter 14, Mishnah 3. This chapter walks us step by step through the taharah of a metzora, the purification ritual that a person who has been declared healed of his tzora'as must undergo before he can return to normal life. Our mishnah continues from the opening of the chapter and describes two stages: the release of the living bird, and the first of the two shavings.
Where we stand in the ritual
By way of orientation: the ritual begins with two birds. One of them is shechted and its blood is collected in a new earthenware vessel that already contains mayim chayim, spring water (the water is put in first, and the blood is added to it). Three items are then brought: eitz erez (cedar wood), eizov (hyssop), and shni tola'as, a strip of crimson wool. A thread of that wool is wound around the cedar and the hyssop so that the three become a single bundle. The living bird is held together with the bundle, they are dipped into the mixture of blood and water, and the kohen sprinkles seven times toward the back of the metzora's hand. Now the living bird, which is still alive, must be released.
"Eino hofeich ponov": the direction in which the bird is sent
Our mishnah reaches that moment with the words "bo lo l'shalei'ach es hatzipor hachayah": the time has come for the surviving bird to be set free. Immediately a restriction is attached: "eino hofeich ponov," he does not turn his face, "lo layam," not in the direction of the sea, "v'lo la'ir," not in the direction of the city, "v'lo lamidbar," and not in the direction of the wilderness.
The Rav (the Bartenura) fills in the picture. If the ritual is taking place in a city that sits on the seashore, the kohen may not face the sea when he releases the bird. If the city borders on a wilderness, he may not face the wilderness. And he may not face the city itself. The source is the posuk: "v'shilach es hatzipor hachayah el michutz la'ir el p'nei hasadeh," he shall send the living bird outside the city, toward the open field. The bird must be sent out of the city and toward a field: not into water, not into desolate wilderness, and not back into the settlement.
But which words of the verse rule out facing the city? The Rav's own formulation, "mikan she'eino hofeich ponov la'ir," suggests that he is reading it out of the verse's final clause: since the bird has to be aimed "el p'nei hasadeh," at the open field, it may not be aimed back at the settlement. The Tosfos Yom Tov examines how the Rosh presents the halachah and observes that the Rosh cites only the words "el michutz la'ir" from earlier in the posuk. He therefore asks: on the Rosh's citation, what tells us that the kohen may not face the city? We are left with two routes to the same halachah: the Rav derives it from the field named at the end of the verse, while the Tosfos Yom Tov understands the Rosh to derive it from the requirement that the bird be sent beyond the city.
The issur hana'ah on the bird
Until this moment the living bird carried an issur hana'ah, a prohibition against deriving any benefit from it. What becomes of that prohibition once the bird flies off? The understanding is that the very act of sending it away lifts the issur hana'ah from it. The reason is straightforward: the Torah does not set a stumbling block before a Jew. If the prohibition remained attached to the bird, somebody could later trap that same bird and eat it, unwittingly transgressing. One might have thought to rely on some form of nullification, but a bird flying by itself is not mixed into anything, so there would be nothing in which the prohibition could be nullified, and the issur hana'ah would simply remain in force. Since the Torah itself commands that the bird be released into the open, the Torah itself removes the prohibition from it.
"Bo l'galei'ach": the first shaving
Next comes the shaving. "Bo l'galei'ach es hametzora": the kohen now turns to shaving him, and the mishnah specifies, "he'evir ta'ar al kol b'soro," a razor is passed over his flesh in its entirety. This shaving is the first of two; a second one takes place on the seventh day, as a later mishnah teaches.
The shaving is thorough. A sharp blade is passed over the whole body. Certainly the hair of the head, the eyebrows, all the facial hair, and the visible body hair are removed. There is some discussion among the poskim as to the precise extent: some exclude the hair of the armpits and some include it, and there is a Tosefta that specifically excludes the hair inside the nose. Beyond such details, everything goes.
"V'chibeis b'godov v'toval": his garments and himself
"V'chibeis b'godov v'toval," and he immerses his garments and immerses himself. The "chibbus" here does not mean laundering; it means immersing the garments in a mikveh. He then immerses himself as well.
What does this tevilah accomplish? Remember that he has already been declared healed and is no longer a metzora, but he still requires cleansing. After this immersion, says the mishnah, he is "tohor mitamei b'bi'ah," he no longer conveys tumah simply by entering: he can walk through the doorway of a house without rendering the house and its contents tamei. "V'harei hu mitamei k'sheretz," but he still conveys tumah on the level of a sheretz, which is the mildest of the avos hatumah, transmitting tumah only through contact, b'maga.
Returning within the wall
"Nichnas lifnim min hachomah," he may now enter inside the wall. He rejoins machaneh Yisroel, and even a walled city, which carries a higher level of kedushah than an unwalled one, is now open to him.
"U'menudeh mibeiso shiv'as yomim," and he is separated from his house for seven days. The Rav explains that the closing words of the mishnah define the earlier ones: "v'ossur b'tashmish hamitah," he is forbidden in marital relations. "Beiso," his house, here means his wife. He is not banished from his home; he may live in it, but for those seven days marital relations are forbidden to him. The proof that a man's wife is spoken of in these terms is the posuk after Har Sinai, "shuvu lochem l'oholeichem," return to your tents, which conveyed that relations were once again permitted.
Why immerse the garments at all?
Here the Mishnah Achronah and the Tiferes Yisroel both press a difficulty on the clause "v'chibeis b'godov v'toval." What is gained by dipping the clothing? Its owner remains an av hatumah on the sheretz level. The instant he takes hold of those freshly immersed garments he makes them tamei again, giving them the status of a rishon l'tumah. If so, what did their tevilah actually achieve?
The Tiferes Yisroel responds that the metzora may indeed immerse his own clothing, notwithstanding that his grip on the garments at that very moment reduces them to a rishon l'tumah. The Torah's aim in requiring this immersion was never that he should wear them in a state of taharah; the benefit lies elsewhere. Consider the status of these clothes beforehand: he had been sitting and reclining upon them, so they had acquired tumas midras and stood as an av hatumah, able to pass tumah even to human beings. Once immersed, the most his touch can do is make them a rishon, and a rishon transmits tumah to foods and to keilim while leaving a person tohor. (Whether the derived grades of rishon, sheni and shlishi carry Torah force or are of rabbinic origin is a machlokes among the Tannoim; in either case the clothing has been brought down to a status that no longer renders people tamei.) The Torah's opening move in restoring the metzora to society, then, is to weaken the tumah clinging to everything around him.
The Mishnah Achronah offers a further gain. Among the items requiring immersion is the bedding he sleeps upon. Midras tumah operates through mishkav: lying above such items renders them tamei and raises them to an av hatumah even with no direct contact. Once that bedding has gone through the mikveh it is fully tohor, and when he afterwards lies down with other layers spread between his body and those lower coverings, no contact takes place and their taharah is preserved. The chibbus thus carries genuine value on either explanation, that of the Tiferes Yisroel and that of the Mishnah Achronah alike.
To review the mishnah's sequence: the living bird is released outside the city toward the open field, not toward the sea, the city or the wilderness; the metzora is shaved over his entire body; his garments and his body are immersed; he no longer conveys tumah by entering a house, though he still conveys tumah by contact, like a sheretz; he may come back inside the walls of the city; and for seven days he is separated from his wife.