פרשת מצרע - הכהן "השיפוצניק"

(34) When you enter the land of Canaan that I give you as a possession, and I inflict an eruptive plague upon a house in the land you possess, (35) the owner of the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, “Something like a plague has appeared upon my house.” (36) The priest shall order the house cleared before the priest enters to examine the plague, so that nothing in the house may become unclean; after that the priest shall enter to examine the house. (37) If, when he examines the plague, the plague in the walls of the house is found to consist of greenish or reddish streaks that appear to go deep into the wall, (38) the priest shall come out of the house to the entrance of the house, and close up the house for seven days. (39) On the seventh day the priest shall return. If he sees that the plague has spread on the walls of the house, (40) the priest shall order the stones with the plague in them to be pulled out and cast outside the city into an unclean place. (41) The house shall be scraped inside all around, and the coating that is scraped off shall be dumped outside the city in an unclean place. (42) They shall take other stones and replace those stones with them, and take other coating and plaster the house. (43) If the plague again breaks out in the house, after the stones have been pulled out and after the house has been scraped and replastered, (44) the priest shall come to examine: if the plague has spread in the house, it is a malignant eruption in the house; it is unclean. (45) The house shall be torn down—its stones and timber and all the coating on the house—and taken to an unclean place outside the city.

(1) Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married: “He married a Cushite woman!” (2) They said, “Has the LORD spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us as well?” The LORD heard it. (3) Now Moses was a very humble man, more so than any other man on earth. (4) Suddenly the LORD called to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, “Come out, you three, to the Tent of Meeting.” So the three of them went out. (5) The LORD came down in a pillar of cloud, stopped at the entrance of the Tent, and called out, “Aaron and Miriam!” The two of them came forward; (6) and He said, “Hear these My words: When a prophet of the LORD arises among you, I make Myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream. (7) Not so with My servant Moses; he is trusted throughout My household. (8) With him I speak mouth to mouth, plainly and not in riddles, and he beholds the likeness of the LORD. How then did you not shrink from speaking against My servant Moses!” (9) Still incensed with them, the LORD departed. (10) As the cloud withdrew from the Tent, there was Miriam stricken with snow-white scales! When Aaron turned toward Miriam, he saw that she was stricken with scales. (11) And Aaron said to Moses, “O my lord, account not to us the sin which we committed in our folly. (12) Let her not be as one dead, who emerges from his mother’s womb with half his flesh eaten away.” (13) So Moses cried out to the LORD, saying, “O God, pray heal her!”

If you (Moses) do not heal her by your prayer, who will put her in quarantine as a leper (cf. Leviticus 13:4) who will ultimately declare her clean? It is impossible for me to examine her as to the character of her leprosy, since I am a near relative and a near relative may not examine the leprous plagues of his kin, (Sifrei Bamidbar 105; cf. Mishnah Negaim 2:5) and there is no other priest in The world who is not her relative. This is alluded to in the words אשר כצאתו מרחם אמו — “since he (the only person who could declare her clean) has come out of the same womb".

(8) Remember that which the Lord, your God, did to Miriam: Halacha: A person who has a blemish and a priest was his relative, what is [the law as to whether it is] permitted for him to see (inspect) it? So did the sages learn: All [tzaraat] blemishes can a man see except for his own blemishes. Rabbi Meir said, “Also not the blemishes of his relatives.”...Rabbi Chaninah said, “Blemishes only come through evil speech. And our rabbis say, ‘You should know that blemishes come from evil speech; behold, Miriam the righteous – through her speaking evil speech about Moshe, her brother, did blemishes approach her. From where [do we know this]? As it states (Leviticus 14:37), "Remember that which the Lord, your God, did to Miriam."'"

(2) As Balaam looked up and saw Israel encamped tribe by tribe, the spirit of God came upon him. (3) Taking up his theme, he said: Word of Balaam son of Beor, Word of the man whose eye is true, (4) Word of him who hears God’s speech, Who beholds visions from the Almighty, Prostrate, but with eyes unveiled: (5) How fair are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings, O Israel!

(2) שכן לשבטיו DWELLING ACCORDING TO HIS TRIBES — He saw each tribe dwelling by itself not intermingled one with another; he saw that the entrances of their tents were not exactly facing each other so that one could not peer into the other's tent (Bava Batra 60a).

A man said to his friend, "Lend me a kav (a measurement) of wheat," and the friend replies, "I have none." Or he asks for the loan of a kav of barley, and the friend replies, "I have none." Or he asks for a kavof dates, and the friend replies, "I have none." Or a woman says to her friend, "Lend me a sieve," and the friend replies, "I have none." Or she says, "Lend me a sifter," and the friend says, "I have none." What does the Holy One do? He causes leprosy to afflict the friends house, and as the household effects are taken out, people seeing them say, "Did not that person say, 'I have none?'.