레위기 14:35의 주석

כנגע נראה לי בבית SOMETHING LIKE A PLAGUE HATH SHOWN ITSELF TO ME IN THE HOUSE — Even if he (the owner of the house) be a learned man and knows for sure that it is a plague he shall not decide the matter as a certainty saying, "a plague hath shown itself to me" but, “something like a plague hath shown itself to me" (Mishnah Negaim 12:5; Sifra, Metzora, Section 5 10).

והגיד לכהן לאמור, and he shall tell the priest, saying, etc. The word לאמור appears to be superfluous. Torat Kohanim explains that the word means that the priest is to tell the afflicted person words of admonition, explaining to him why he had been so afflicted. This is pure homiletics, seeing that the Torah speaks of the owner of the house doing the talking, not the priest. Our sages simply used the principle of אם אינו ענין לדברי בעל הבית תנהו ענין לדברי כהן, "if we could not find a reason for the owner to say something other than what the Torah recorded here, we may apply the words exegetically to what the priest says instead." The author of Korban Aharon explains the sequence as follows: והגיד לכהן, the reason the owner of the affected house is forced to tell the priest about his problem is לאמוד, so that the priest can sermonize to him and explain why he was made to suffer this plague. If this explanation were correct the Torah should have written the word לאמור after the words כנגע נראה לי בבית, "it seems to me that the house has developed a plague." No doubt the approach of Torat Kohanim is quite correct.

Something like an eruption. The Torah teaches good character traits. A person should use an expression of doubt, as Chazal said (Berachos 4a): Teach your tongue to say, “I do not know.” And with this, Rashi is answering the question: At first it said, “I shall put the eruption of tzora’as,” which implies that it is surely an eruption of tzora’as in the eyes of the beholder. Why then does it say afterwards that he says: “Something like an eruption,” an expression of doubt? Rather, Scripture is teaching us that even if he is a learned man and knows for certain that it is an eruption that causes impurity, nonetheless, it is a Divine decree that he should only say an expression of doubt. Furthermore, Rashi is answering the question that according to the plain meaning I might think that it is a Divine mitzvah for the house-owner to come and declare this. However, this cannot be. Do you think that if the kohein happens to be there, or if he did not say the expression — “something like an eruption” — it would not be fine? Therefore, Rashi lets us know that this is only a warning that one should not decide the matter with absolute clarity; but if he is completely silent [and says nothing pertaining to the eruption], that too is fine (Divrei Dovid).

אשר לו הבית, “to whom this house belongs, after the Israelites have conquered the land of Canaan. Everyone by then knows which house is his house. (Sifra)

And the one whose house it is shall come. Our Father, our King, our God teaches us the way of truth in order that we be enlightened to serve God. And this is that which we are obliged to place 'like a seal on our hearts' (ref. to Song of Songs 8:6): that there is nothing void of His watching, may He be blessed, and there is no teaching of pain which is not reproach for sin. And it is good to praise God for all pain which has not come, for if one's God were not in one's midst, these evils would have found one. And this is "And the one whose house it is shall come". The "telling" [that the homeowner gives to the priest] could have been "I have seen something like a plague in the house" -- but this is not what God has chosen, rather that they should say "something like a plague has appeared to me on my house". This is as if to say, for my sake it appeared on the house; for my sin God made me liable for a plague of tzara'at, it should have been on me and God placed it [instead] on my house. And this is why it says "appeared to me"; as if to say, it is suitable to say "like a plague appeared to me" for this has the substance of "to me". This is like what is said (Genesis 27:3-4) "prepare for me a dish"; "and trap for me"; "and bring it to me". And there are innumerable further examples.

... The reason is because of "he who speaks untruth shall not stand before my eyes" (Psalms 101:7). As so long as a priest has not availed himself to him, it is not [legally] a blemish; so could he say, "A blemish has appeared on my house?"

...On account of proper behavior, such that a man should not say even about something that is clear to him, "[It is] certain," but rather, "[There is] a doubt." And this is what the Sages, may their memory be blessed, said (Berakhot 4a), "Teach your tongue to say, "I don't know.'"

However, the question remains why the Torah did not simply write that "the priest spoke, etc.," and I would not have had to search for the meaning of the verse? Clearly, the Torah wanted to leave something for us to exploit exegetically. Our sages have articulated this very principle themselves in Torat Kohanim. This is what is written there: "why did the Torah not write that the owner said נגע, but describes him as saying כנגע, "something like the plague?" They answer that the letter כ teaches that even if the owner is very learned and he has no doubt that the symptoms he has found are those of a נגע, he must not take it upon himself to pronounce judgment but he must leave it to the priest. What forced the author of Torat Kohanim to explain the extra letter כ in this manner? Perhaps the Torah was afraid that if it wrote simply נגע the owner would feel that unless he was certain that the symptoms were really those of the נגע צרעת there was no need to call in the priest. The Torah therefore made it plain by the additional letter כ that the priest has to be called in regardless of whether it is doubtful if the symptoms were truly the ones resulting in the house having to be torn down. What the author of Torat Kohanim meant was that all the Torah had to write were the words והגיד לכהן. The words "I think that something like a נגע appears on my house," were quite unnecessary. It was clear from the context of the paragraph that the owner referred to this. Considering these extra words, Torat Kohanim concluded that the reason was to teach us that the priest has to be called in regardless of whether there is doubt or not. This explanation is based on the scholar who holds that on occasion the Torah wrote things in order to encourage us to engage in exegesis.

Torat Kohanim continues to exploit practically every word here in a similar fashion. The words נראה לי, are explained as "appeared to me and not to my light," i.e. I could see it with my own eyes unassisted by artificial light. This is the basis for the rule that one need not open the windows of a house in order to start searching for symptoms of a נגע. The word בבית, "in the house," is taken to mean that even if the stain occurred in the upper floor, the whole house is afflicted. Many other halachot are all derived from these basically superfluous words of our verse. Even though our sages often use the above mentioned method of exegesis, it is preferable to derive a rule from a direct sequence of words such as לאמור כנגע in this verse. It means that regardless of how definite the appearance of that stain, the owner has to report it as being only "like a נגע." We are not bound by the exegetical method used by our sages in deriving certain rulings from the presence of or absence of certain words or letters provided we follow accepted norms of exegesis. The major restriction we are bound by is that our exegesis must not result in הלכות directly opposed to those arrived at by the classical commentators.

That is that He commanded us that a house that has tsaraat be impure. And this commandment includes [the various] impurities of a house - which ones need quarantine or the destruction of some of its walls or the destruction of all of it, with what they become impure and how they become impure. (See Parashat Metzora; Mishneh Torah, Defilement by Leprosy 14.)