Commento su Levitico 14:32

זאת תורת אשר בו נגע צרעת, This is the law concerning someone afflicted with "leprosy," etc. The entire verse seems superfluous. Our sages in Torat Kohanim explain that the extraneous words זאת תורת refer to the situation when a poor person insisted on bringing the guilt-offering appropriate for a rich person. His offering is acceptable. You may well ask why the Torah had to tell us this. Why should it not be simple logic seeing the Torah's verses dealing with the poor man were designed only to lighten his burden. If such a person is willing to extend himself beyond what he is obligated to do more power to him! He will surely be blessed! It appears that seeing that the Torah used the word זאת to exclude a wealthy man who brought the offering appropriate for a poor man, the Torah was afraid that the reader might feel that a poor man would also not be allowed to deviate from the rules laid down previously. The word תורת therefore teaches that the poor is free to do better than the Torah demanded of him.

This still leaves the words אשר לא תשיג ידו in our verse unaccounted for. Perhaps the Torah was afraid that some scholar would attempt to draw a comparison between what has been written about relative poverty of people who have to bring guilt-offerings because of failing to testify, or contracting impurity and entering the Temple in such a state, etc. in Leviticus 5,7. In those cases the Torah had provided for the minimal meal-offering to be brought by the lowest category of the poor. Such people are required to bring only two tenths Eypha of fine flour etc. instead of two birds. The scholar may have wanted to extrapolate that if the "leper" is too poor, he too may discharge his obligation by such a meal-offering. The Torah therefore had to write אשר לא תשיג ידו בטהרתו, that such a person cannot attain his purification unless he brings two turtle doves, etc.; the Torah therefore wrote זאת תורת אשר…לא תשיג ידו בטהרתו to tell us that although he cannot afford it at the time he is being purified and he is wallowing in misery he still must bring two birds, no less.

A moral-ethical approach to this verse may be based on the Zohar (Tikkunim 22) according to which the state of poverty is called צרעת which accounts for the fact that both people afflicted with poverty and those afflicted with "leprosy" are described as "dead" in Nedarim 64. This is what the Torah alludes to when it wrote אשר בו נגע צרעת, meaning the fact that the person who has to bring the offering is still poor is evidence that he is still afflicted with the plague of "leprosy." The Torah explains this by adding: "that he cannot afford it during his purification rites."