Or HaChaim on Leviticus 13:2/אור החיים על ויקרא י״ג:ב׳

1 אדם כי יהיה בעור בשרו שאת או ספחת, when a person shall have in the skin of his flesh a rising or a scab, etc. We have to explain this verse in a similar vein to the statement in Baba Metzia 114 on Numbers 19,14: "you are called אדם, whereas the title אדם is never applied to Gentiles, for the Gentiles are not susceptible to the impurity resulting from the various skin-diseases enumerated in our Parshah." This statement, attributed to the prophet Elijah, is proof that the clothing of Gentiles afflicted with these נגעים, stains mentioned in our chapter, does not confer impurity on Jews in contact with them as we have learned at the beginning of the eleventh chapter of the tractate נגעים.

2כי יהיה בעור בשרו, which he will have on the skin of his flesh, etc; the Torah informs us here that only the skin of Israelites afflicted with this disease is affected. The disease does not penetrate below the skin. This is a principal difference between Israelites and Gentiles; the latter are perceived as afflicted with this disease through and through. Their entire being is perceived as being part of the צרעת syndrome. If an Israelite has committed a sin which results in נגע צרעת, the skin afflictions mentioned in this chapter, it is visible only on his exterior not on his flesh and certainly not his soul, personality.

3Our sages in Erchin 3 explain the word אדם as meaning that even a baby can be afflicted with the disease related here as babies too qualified for the term אדם. Women too are included as the Torah refers to man and woman combined as אדם in Genesis 5,8.

4Torat Kohanim adds that the reason the Torah chose the expression בעור בשרו, the skin of his flesh, instead of merely בעורו, on his skin, is to include the skin on which hair does not grow. We are not to think that only skin with follicles, i.e. capable of producing hair, is included here. [the Torah features the colour of hair surrounding these skin blemishes, and it was therefore reasonable to assume that only those patches of hair are subject to this legislation. Ed.] As it is, if a white hair grew in an area normally devoid of hair, the legislation in this chapter applies. Nonetheless the white spot on the skin has to precede the appearance of the hair before this legislation can apply. If an old man or an albino who normally has white hair, first develops the symptoms on the skin described here and a white hair makes its appearance subsequently, it is doubtful if such a person is considered afflicted seeing the hair did not turn white as a result of the condition of the skin surrounding it. On the other hand, the progression of the symptoms conforms to what is written in the Torah. We are unable to determine with certainty that the hair grew white from the source as at the time the person appears before the priest we only see the ultimate result and do not know whether the hair grew black and immediately turned white. Tossaphot in Niddah 19 feel that the bright spot on the skin, בהרת, is presumed to have caused the hair to turn white. At any rate, such a situation is one which is known in הלכה as ספק טומאה, a state of doubtful impurity.

5שאת או ספחת, a rising or a scab; we are taught in Nega-im 1,1 that the meaning of the word ספחת is a kind of שאת, a whiteness which is a shade darker than that of בהרת, as the colour of שאת is similar to clean wool and similar in whiteness to the whitewash used in the Temple. Even though the expression ספחת occurs in the Torah only in our verse, the same rule is true for a lower degree of whiteness of בהרת which is the whitest of whites, similar to snow in colour. The verse ought to be understood as if the Torah had written: שאת או ספחת, או בהרת וספחתה.

6We need to understand why the Torah mentioned שאת before it mentioned בהרת, seeing the latter is whiter than שאת, in fact unmatched by anything else in whiteness? Why did the Torah not give us a list of degrees of white in a descending order? We believe that if the Torah had commenced by describing the whitest possible kind of skin-affliction, i.e. בהרת first, and had mentioned the word ספחת later, I could not have derived that שאת also may occur in shades of a secondary degree of whiteness which is part of its category and is called ספחת דשאת. Even if the Torah had written: בהרת או ספחת או שאת, I would have concluded that there are only three categories of the colour white which form a נגע צרעת instead of there being four such categories (2 of them being sub-categories). Even if the Torah had written: בהרת או שאת או ספחת, I would not have known that there is an additional category called ספחת הבהרת, seeing the word appeared only at the end of the sequence. As it is, it is impossible to overlook the fact that the Torah wanted us to know that ספחת is both a sub-category of שאת as well as a sub-category of בהרת.

7Erchin 15 explains that these afflictions are a penalty for people who have spoken ill of their fellow man. Maimonides explains this in greater detail in the seventh chapter of his Hilchot Deyot. This is what he writes: "A person is guilty of the sin of לשון הרע, a wicked tongue, when he tells something detrimental to the image of this fellow man even though he speaks the truth. If he tells lies about his fellow man he is guilty of the sin of מוציא שם רע, bad-mouthing another human being." We see therefore that one is called בעל לשון הרע, even if one tells the truth about someone, whereas one is called מוציא שם רע when the evil gossip one spreads has no basis in fact. The Torah therefore describes two different categories of skin afflictions, one to be applied to people guilty of לשון הרע, i.e. בהרת, the other to be applied to people guilty of מוציא שם רע, described by the Torah as שאת.The reason the Torah chose the term שאת as an allusion to people guilty of מוציא שם רע is because the Torah said in Exodus 23,1: "do not utter a falsehood." The word בהרת aptly describes someone who engages in לשון הרע, as the word describes something which is the brightest of bright, i.e. true. Although such a person speaks the truth, what he has done is despicable. The sub-categories of which the Torah speaks may be regarded as alluding to the verbiage which surrounds the basic detrimental information which the respective guilty party tries to convey conversationally.

8והיה לנגע… צרעת, and it will turn into a skin-afliction. Inasmuch as the most important factor determining the impurity resulting from what is and what is not a נגע צרעת is revealed by the colour of certain hairs and not by the colour of the skin alone, the Torah uses the expression צרעת independent of mention of any hair. The word והיה, "it will be," alludes to the fact that what determines if we are dealing with a נגע צרעת has yet to occur.