Commento su Nazir 8:2

נזיר שהוא טמא בספק ומוחלט בספק – uncertain if he had been defiled by contact with the dead and uncertain if he was a declared leper.

Introduction There is a good deal of background information that will help (some) in understanding this mishnah. The topic of the mishnah is someone who is not only a doubtfully defiled nazirite, but a doubtful metzorah, one who has scale disease (which I will, for convenience sake, call leprosy). The process of the “leper” is as follows. When the priest checks him and decides that he does have the disease, he sits outside of the camp for seven days. Afterwards, he offers two bird sacrifices, shaves and bathes, and then may enter the camp. On the seventh day he again shaves, then goes to the mikveh and on the eighth day brings more sacrifices. He may not eat consecrated food until he brings these last sacrifices. We have already learned two things regarding the leper and the nazirite. First of all, the nazirite is allowed to shave if he has to do so to be purified from leprosy. Second, if a nazirite becomes a leper the days of his leprosy do not count toward his naziriteship, but neither does his becoming a leper overturn his entire naziriteship. Our mishnah also holds that shaving for leprosy cannot at the same time count for shaving for a naziriteship.

אוכל בקדשים אחר ששים יום – but not before then, for someone who is uncertain leper, he or a witness that brings his atonement is forbidden to eat Holy Things but because of being an uncertain impure Nazirite, he is not forbidden from eating Holy Things, for he is not called someone lacking atonement who is forbidden to eat Holy Things other than a person whose defilement comes out upon him from his body. How so? He took the Nazirite [vow] for thirty days, and on the first day, there occurred to him an uncertain defilement through contact with the dead and uncertain leprosy He sprinkles and repeats it and immerses and is purified from his defilement from contact with the dead, as if he came to shave/cut his hair according to the law of an impure Nazirite, or according to the law of a leper who became healed. But, he is not able to shave/cut his hair until the thirty days from the day that he took the vow of Nazirite, lest he is a pure Nazirite, and he is forbidden to shave until the fulfillment of the days of his Naziriteship and until he brings his sacrifices, and after thirty days, he shaves the uncertain shaving of leper. Uncertain shaving of defilement of a Nazirite and uncertainty shaving of someone pure, and he brings two birds according to the law of the shaving for a declared leper. And the sin offering of a fowl that comes on the uncertainty, because of the uncertainty of his being a defiled Nazirite, and the burnt offering of an animal because of his uncertain status as a pure Nazirite, and even though he doesn’t bring the rest of the sacrifices of someone who is a pure person who has shaved, we state that if he shaved on one of the three sacrifices, he has fulfilled his religious duty. And he makes a condition upon it that if he is not a pure Nazirite, that the burnt offering will be a free-will donation, and the law of a declared leper that requires two shavings – one after the completion of his declaration when he became healed from his leprosy. And one after the days of his counting, after he counted seven days from the first shaving, as it is written (Leviticus 14:9): “On the seventh day he shall shave off all of his hair – [of head, beard and eyebrows].”But the one who is an uncertain Nazirite is not able to shave. Therefore, he must wait thirty days of uncertain pure Naziriteship and then he takes a shave of uncertainty for the days of his counting of the leper and the uncertainty of a pure Naziriteship. And he brings a burnt offering of cattle of uncertain Naziriteship in order to shave on the sacrifices and make a condition upon it. And on the day after his shaving, he brings the sacrifice of the leper to permit Holy Things to him. And he brings the sin offering of fowl for the sin-offering of cattle does not come on that which is uncertain. And he doesn’t bring the guilt offering. For the guilt offering does not prevent him from eating Holy Things, and it is found that after sixty [days], he eats Holy Things, for then he brings his atonement of the uncertainty of being declared, but he is still forbidden to drink wine and to defile himself through contact with the dead for perhaps he was a declared leper. But the shaving for a leper does not count for him, neither for the shaving of a pure Nazirite, nor for the shaving of an impure Nazirite, and he still needs two shavings: one for the impure Nazirite and one for the pure Nazirite. And if he was a declared leper, all what he counted for the days of his Naziriteship do not count for him. For the days of his declared [leprosy] and the days of his counting do not count for him. And he needs to count another thirty days and after thirty days, he shaves from being an uncertain impure Nazirite and an uncertain pure Nazirite. And he brings the sin-offering of fowl on being an uncertain impure Nazirite and the burnt offering of cattle for being an uncertain pure Nazirite, in order that he can shave on the sacrifice and makes a condition upon it. But he is still prohibited to drink wine or to defile himself through contact with the dead. For perhaps he was a declared leper and therefore, the first two shavings did not count for him for the sake of his Naziriteship, not for defilement nor for purity, for perhaps he was an impure Nazirite. And the third shaving is the shaving of defilement. Therefore, he is required to count another thirty days of pure Naziriteship, and he brings the sacrifice of a pure Nazirite and makes the condition, and afterwards is permitted to drink wine and to become defiled through contact with the dead. And similarly, if he took a vow of Naziriteship for a year, and something happened to him at the beginning of his year of uncertain defilement through contact with the dead, and uncertain leprosy, he counts a full year and shaves the shaving of uncertain defilement and uncertain purity and uncertain leprosy, ad counts a second year and shaves and brings his atonement and eats Holy Things [if he is a Kohen] and counts another two years prior to his drinking wine and defiling himself through contact with the dead.

A nazirite who was in doubt whether he had been defiled and in doubt whether he had been a confirmed leper, may eat consecrated food after sixty days, and drink wine and come into contact with the dead after one hundred and twenty days, since shaving on account of leprosy overrides [the prohibition against] the shaving of the nazirite only when [the leprosy] is certain, but when it is doubtful it does not override it. The mishnah explains what is to happen in this situation. First of all, he must wait thirty days after he has been purified from having potentially come into contact with the dead and then he may shave his first shaving for leprosy. He could not shave earlier for he may not have been a leper and he may have been a pure nazirite in which case the leprosy shaving would not override the prohibition for a nazirite to shave, as the mishnah states at the end. Then he counts another seven days at which point he normally could shave his second leprosy shaving, but he cannot for the same reason. If he is a pure nazirite, he would need to wait thirty days in between each shaving. His second leprosy shaving is therefore at sixty days. At this point he may eat consecrated food. However, he may still be a nazirite, for if he was really a leper then those days did not count towards his naziriteship and he has not served thirty days after shaving. Therefore he cannot drink wine or come into contact with the dead. Thirty days later he again shaves, but this shaving may be for becoming defiled as a nazirite, if he was indeed unclean, or it may be for completion of his naziriteship. Since he may still not have served a nazirite term in purity, even after this shaving, he waits another thirty days and shaves again, only then is he allowed to drink wine and come into contact with the dead. While this mishnah is difficult, one thing is sure: the barber will be getting a lot of work!