What If a Metzora’s Eighth Day Falls Out on Erev Pesach?

Provided courtesy of Real Clear Daf

We discussed this case on 32b in the Daf this week. The Gemara there begins with the opinion of Reish Lakish as quoted by Ulla: Even if a tamei person only partially enters the Temple courtyard, he is liable to lashes as if he completely entered. Presumably Reish Lakish means that a partial entrance would also make the transgressor liable to kareis, Divinely decreed premature death (though on 33b the Gemara suggests otherwise). The Gemara points out that this ruling appears to be contradicted by a Braissa that discusses a metzora whose eighth and final day of purification fell out on erev Pesach, which means that if he cannot complete the purification process by today, he will be unable to partake in the korban Pesach. Something else happened which further complicated things: the metzora had a seminal emission, so that he now had an additional form of ritual impurity. Can this metzora still proceed with his purification process?

One could make a case that this metzora should not be allowed to complete his purification process since it entails going up Temple Mount to the Gate of Nikanor where sacrificial blood and some oil are applied to the metzora’s thumb, ear, and toe--and the halacha is that a person with seminal impurity is barred from the Temple Mount area. Yet the Braissa permits him to go ahead with the procedure: He ascends Temple Mount and offers his thumb and other parts to the Cohen in the Temple courtyard for the necessary applications, and by nightfall he will be ritually pure and able to partake in korban Pesach. What of the prohibition against a person with seminal impurity ascending Temple Mount? The Braissa argues: better to set aside this relatively minor prohibition, than to abdicate the mitzva of korban Pesach, an offense punishable by kareis.

The Gemara observes that the Braissa’s argument only makes sense on the assumption that when the metzora sticks his thumb into the Temple courtyard it is not legally tantamount to fully entering the Courtyard. For if it were then we would be dealing with the act of entering the Courtyard with seminal impurity, which--since an even holier area is being entered--is punishable by kareis. This of course would destroy the Braissa’s whole argument, for, why would the Halacha allow a violation of one kareis sin to avoid another kareis sin (logic would actually dictate the opposite: better to passively not do a positive mitzva punishable by kareis than actively violate a sin punishable by kareis)? So the only way to understand the Braissa is if we grant the assumption that partial entry is not considered a complete entrance.

Ulla however is unfazed by this question. Ulla explains that (really partially entering is tantamount to fully entering, and) the reason we allow this metzora to go ahead with the purification at the Gate of Nikanor is based on a “since” argument: Since the Torah clearly waived the tuma status stemming from this person’s metzora status (for built into the metzora’s procedure is this step of putting part of his still tamei body into the Courtyard), it follows that the Torah will also waive an additional tuma problem as in our case where he also experienced a seminal emission. But in a typical case which lacks any “since” momentum (i.e. he doesn’t happen to be a metzora on his eighth day), even a partial entrance would be strictly forbidden on pain of kareis.

Rav Yosef there suggests another application of the “since” principle. We know that in the event that the community contracted corpse-tuma before Pesach, the Torah allows the korban to be brought in their state of impurity. By contrast if the community contracted “zivus” (a type of bodily emission) impurity, there would be no permit to bring the korban Pesach. However if after contracting corpse-tumah the community then also contracted “zivus” tuma, the “since” idea should allow the korban to go ahead: Since the Torah permitted the corpse-tuma problem, it should also permit the zivus-tuma problem.

But Abaye objects to this application by drawing a distinction between the nature of these two dispensations that are being compared: the permit for the metzora to put his thumb into the Courtyard is one of “hutra,” an absolute permit, as if the Torah says “there is no tuma problem here,” whereas the permit for the community to bring a sacrifice while in a state of corpse-tuma is one of “hudcha,” we “push off” the prohibition as a matter of choosing between one of two undesirable situations (either bring the offering while tamei, or don’t bring the offering. The point is that the tuma problem is still here--we just bring the korban in spite of this). Therefore, Abaye argues, while we could understand the “since” idea by an absolute permit (where apparently there is a very powerful justification to allow this course of action; so powerful, that a conflicting prohibition becomes permitted), it doesn’t logically follow that we would say the same thing by a “pushing off” type of permit, where it’s almost like the Torah is begrudgingly allowing the action--but who’s to say that the Torah would even tolerate an additional prohibition?

Rava comes to the defense of Rav Yosef by turning the argument around: if anything, Rava argues, it’s easier to understand the “since” idea when the first problem was pushed off. For once the Torah pushed off one prohibition, what’s the big deal to push off another? As opposed to where the first prohibition was completely permitted by the Torah: perhaps the Torah only went to the extreme of totally permitting one prohibition, not another. If Ulla is telling us that even absolute permits replicate, than all the more so will the exercise of pushing off be repeated for additional prohibitions!