Comentário sobre Levítico 14:53

14) (Vayikra 14:51) "and he shall sprinkle upon the house": on the lintel. Others say: on all of it.

AND HE SHALL LET GO THE LIVING BIRD OUT OF THE CITY INTO THE OPEN FIELD, AND MAKE ATONEMENT FOR THE HOUSE, AND IT SHALL BE CLEAN. Now this atonement was effected by the bird which is to be sent away, the bird carrying away all his sins out of the city into the open field, like the atonement effected by the goat that is to be sent away.¹¹⁴Further, 16:21-22. Now since the punishment of the plague which appears in a person’s house is unlike [i.e., less in severity than] that of a plague which afflicts his body, Scripture did not make it necessary for him [the owner of the house] to bring a guilt-offering and sin-offering [as it required for the purification of a leper], because the first [stage of] atonement that the leper brings for his purification — namely, the birds, the cedar-wood and the hyssop¹¹⁵Above, Verse 4. And here too, in the purification of a house from leprosy, these are the requirements as stated in Verse 52. — is sufficient for him [i.e., the owner of the house].

וכפר על הבית וטהר, “he shall provide atonement for the house and it will become purified.” According to Nachmanides this atonement is effected through the bird that is released into the air outside the city into the field. This bird is perceived as carrying away all the sins of the person who has purchased it and gone through the ritual with the help of the priest. The procedure is analogous to the שעיר המשתלח, the “scapegoat” that we are familiar with from the Day of Atonement rituals, although that scapegoat is thrown to its death. The reason why this procedure differs from that of a person who experiences tzoraat on his skin, is that the penalty for the sins of a person whose house is afflicted with tzoraat is much less than that of the person whose skin has become afflicted. The sin of the persons whose house was afflicted was far less serious than that of the person afflicted with tzoraat on his skin. The latter had to bring also a sin offering and a guilt offering. The initial atonement procedure is sufficient to cleanse the owner of the afflicted house of his sin. Some commentators believe that every “atonement” mentioned in connection with any of three types of tzoraat afflicting house, garments, or skin as well as the “atonement” mentioned by the Torah in connection with the offering the Torah demands of a mother who has given birth recently, as well as the people afflicted with the disease known as zav, mentioned in the following chapter, is not a term for “forgiving a sin,” but is a term denoting the purification of the party concerned having been successfully completed. We find the term used in that sense in Gittin 56, where the words לכפורי ידיה בהאי גברא mean that “G’d wants to ‘clean’ His hands,” i.e. punish him for having been the instrument through whom Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed. Clearly, the meaning of the word there is not “atonement” in the normal sense of the word.