Negaim, Chapter 1, Mishnah 4. Until now the chapter has been mapping out the mar'os negaim, the shades of white in which a nega can appear, the two avos and their toldos. This mishnah takes those colorations and sets them inside the practical framework of how a nega is actually judged, introducing terms that will accompany us through the whole masechta: hesger, hechlet and p'tur.
The mishnah's opening words are "Arba'ah mar'os ha'eilu mitztarfin zeh im zeh": the four colorations enumerated until now are joined together with one another.
Whether all four truly combine
The Rav, along with the Ra'avad in his dispute with the Rambam, found themselves forced into a different reading of the words. In their version the text is not arba'ah mar'os but "me'arba mar'os hallalu mitztarfin": out of these four shades, certain ones combine. On that reading the two avos pair with each other, and each av pairs with the toldah that stems from it, but an av will not pair with a toldah belonging to its counterpart, nor do the two toldos pair with one another.
Our text as it stands, needing no such correction and reading plainly arba'ah mar'os, sits comfortably with the Rambam's approach. The Rav quotes him: the Rambam wrote "d'chol ha'daled mar'os mitztarfin", that the entire set of four joins together, so that one toldah pairs with the second toldah, and an av pairs even with the toldah that grows out of its counterpart. The Rav records this view without supplying the reasoning behind it.
For what purpose do they combine?
The mishnah says they join together "liftor u'lehachlit u'lehasgir": to declare the person tahor, to declare him a muchlat, a confirmed metzora, or to place him in hesger. By right, hesger should have been listed before hechlet, since hesger is the intermediate stage and hechlet the final one. Hechlet is written first because there are cases in which the hechlet comes immediately, with no hesger at all.
The mishnah then spells it out: "Keitzad? Omeid b'sof shavua rishon lehasgir." Picture a man who arrives before the kohen carrying a whitish blemish of one of the four shades, and the mark presents as a questionable siman of tzara'as. The kohen closes him into his house for seven days and then comes back to look again. If nothing had spread, no pisyon, and no other siman of tum'as tzara'as had shown itself, the nega is omeid, exactly where it was. (Some verdicts arrive with no waiting at all: should a black hair inside the baheres turn white while the kohen is still inspecting it, the man is a muchlat that instant.) In our case nothing of that kind occurred and the patch did not enlarge, so the kohen assigns him a second week of hesger. This is precisely where the joining of the shades does its work: even should the blemish have moved into a different one of the four colorations, brighter than the one the kohen originally saw, all four are combined and we treat it as the identical nega.
The Rav supplies the verses. Regarding the second hesger the Torah says "v'ra'ahu hakohen bayom hashvi'i v'hinei hanega amad b'einav": on the seventh day the kohen sees that the affliction is still present yet has not grown, and therefore "v'hisgiro hakohen shivas yamim sheinis", he confines him for a further seven days.
Declaring Taharah After the Second Hesger
Now for p'tur. The mishnah's words are "omeid b'sof shavua sheini". Two weeks have gone by, the mark is the same size it always was and it never spread; in the Rav's language it "amad b'mar'eihu", it held its appearance, and although it never faded to anything paler than the four shades, the kohen nevertheless pronounces him tahor once that second week of hesger closes.
This holds true despite the wording of the pasuk, "v'ra'ah hakohen oso bayom hashvi'i sheinis v'hinei keihah hanega", which gives the impression that the affliction must have grown dimmer. Chazal taught that literal dimming is not demanded. Even if the patch shifted from the whiteness of sheleg to that of sid, or from sid over to sheleg, we do not declare "nega acher hu", that we are facing a fresh affliction whose hesger must begin again from scratch; instead we view it as having stood in place, and the kohen sends him off tahor. Because all four shades are combined, it is still the very same nega. Whether the color deepened toward the brighter end or slid toward the duller one changes nothing: once the two weeks have run their course it counts as omeid, and the ruling is p'tur.
Hechlet through michyah or a white hair
"Lehachlit es shenolad lo michyah o se'ar lavan bit'chilah." Here the Torah adds a further element. A michyah is an island of raw, or even of perfectly sound, skin that shows up inside the white nega, and it is a siman of tzara'as. The Rav describes the case: "k'shehuva bit'chilaso el hakohen", the man is brought before the kohen on his very first visit. He carries no status of metzora yet; something troubling caught his eye and he has come to have it looked at. He has upon him a baheres of a gris (a coin whose measurement is debated among the various opinions), and sitting inside that white area is a piece of healthy flesh, lentil sized and square in shape, "michyas basar ka'adashah meruba'as". In such a case the kohen pronounces him muchlat, a full metzora, with no waiting period at all.
The same applies to a se'ar lavan. Where a hair in the baheres had been black and the kohen now sees it white, the man is immediately muchlat; a black hair in a baheres that turns white is a sign of full tzara'as. And even in the very moment of examination: "v'lo hispik lehasgiro ad shehafchu l'lavan", before the kohen managed to place him in hesger the black hair turned white before his eyes, "machlito miyad", he declares him a muchlat on the spot, and the man must leave his home and dwell chutz min hamachaneh, outside the camp, as a metzora does.
Spreading operates differently. The Rav writes "aval pisyon lo metamei bit'chilah": growth does not render tamei at the outset. A man may be standing in front of the kohen while the baheres visibly expands, and keeps on expanding, before any hesger has been imposed, and still this is no basis for hechlet. The kohen simply shuts him in for the week.
The mishnah goes on to teach that michyah and se'ar lavan bring about hechlet "b'sof shavua rishon, b'sof shavua sheini, ul'achar hap'tur" as well. Meaning: should a black hair turn white, or should a patch of sound skin surface within the white area, when the kohen returns after the first seven days, or when he returns after the second seven days, the man becomes a muchlat. So too once p'tur has already been pronounced: nothing had spread, nothing else had changed, the kohen released him to his house, and then he comes rushing back because a black hair has whitened or a michyah has emerged inside the nega. There too he is made a muchlat.
Hechlet through pisyon
"Lehachlit es shenolad lo pisyon b'sof shavua rishon." Should the white patch have grown by the time the first seven days are up, he is a muchlat. "B'sof shavua sheini": suppose nothing grew during that first week, and because nothing shrank either he was given a second week of hesger, and now, when the kohen comes back after those seven days, there is growth; he is a muchlat. "Ul'achar hap'tur": and if the kohen had already released him with a clean verdict, and afterward the mark suddenly spreads, he is a muchlat.
Hofeich kulo lavan
The mishnah's next clause concerns one who becomes wholly white, "hahofeich kulo lavan", and it teaches a striking din. While a man is sitting in hesger awaiting his verdict, whether after the first week or after the second, the kohen may return and find that whiteness has overtaken his entire body (areas ordinarily hidden from view, the armpits for instance, are not reckoned). That condition is hofach kulo lavan, and it functions as a siman of taharah rather than of tzara'as. But when the same thing happens "mitoch hap'tur", after he had already been told that he is clean, and then his whole body turns white, he is tamei: a muchlat.
And the reverse: "v'liftor es hahofeich kulo lavan mitoch hechlet o mitoch hesger", to declare tahor the one who turns entirely white out of hechlet, or out of hesger, which precedes the hechlet. In those states, turning entirely white is a siman of taharah and he is not a metzora. And in all of this, whichever of the shades the nega passes into, they combine and are regarded as one and the same coloration.
The mishnah concludes: "Eilu mar'os negaim shekol negaim tluyim bahem", these are the appearances of negaim, upon which all the negaim depend. In every case we have described, a shift from one of these shades to another, absent growth, absent a michyah of sound skin in the middle, absent a black hair turning white, carries one and the same din.
The sweeping phrase "all the negaim depend on them" is something of a guzma, an overstatement, because further on in the masechta we will reach the laws of nesek, tzara'as on the scalp, where a different set of colors is involved. But regarding the ordinary nega on the body, these four shades are indeed the foundation on which all the halachos rest.