dyed with blood (representing life: deut 12:23) and scarlet dye, along with cedar and ezov which also appear in the ceremony of purification from corpse-impurity (numbers 19), represent the symbolic return of the metzora to life. stories involving tzaraat the hebrew bible also speaks of tzaraath in several stories: in exodus 4:1–7, when moses stood before the burning bush, he doubted that the israelites would believe that god had sent him. god provides him with two signs to prove his mission: turning his rod into a snake and then back into a rod, and turning his hand into being stricken with tzaraath and then back again. moses performed these signs for the elders in exodus 4:30. in numbers 12:10, miriam was stricken with tzaraath for her involvement in slandering moses. aaron asks moses to cure her. moses prays for his sister and she is cured of the tzaraath but must remain in confinement for seven days. the torah, however, does not indicate that she went through any purification process similar to what is normally required. miriam's tzaraath is described as "like snow", perhaps less due to the white color than due to the production of skin flakes, which is common in various skin diseases. naaman, an aramean general, suffered from tzaraath until being cured by elisha. however, after elisha's servant gehazi defrauded naaman, gehazi and his descendants were punished with tzaraath. in 2 kings 7, four men with tzaraath were staying outside the besieged city of samaria, and were the first to discover that the besieging aramean army had fled. king uzziah was stricken with tzaraath after offering incense in the temple, a task forbidden to all except the priests. affliction of clothing tzaraath can also afflict garments. garment tzaraath is relevant to only three materials: wool (hebrew צמר) linen (hebrew פשתים) leather: either unworked leather (עור) or finished leather (כל מלאכת עור, literally "all worked leather") in a wool or linen garment, the tzaraath may appear uniformly throughout the fabric, or else be limited to the garment's woof or to its warp (או בשתי או בערב). tzaraath appears in clothing as an greenish (ירקרק – yerakrak) or reddish (אדמדם – adamdam) eruption. this has been interpreted as either a intense color ("the greenist of greens") or a mild one ("less than fully green"). such clothing must be brought to the kohen for inspection. a garment cannot be declared impure upon initial examination; rather, it is confined for seven days, and if on the seventh day, the eruption has spread, the garment is declared impure with tzaraath. subsequent to a declaration of tzaraath, the garment, whether wool, linen or leather, is completely burnt in fire; if the tzaraath was confined to the woof or warp, only that need be burnt. upon re-evaluation after the seven-day confinement, the kohen may instruct that the garment with the eruption be washed and confined once more for seven days. if upon a second re-evaluation after the second seven days of confinement, the kohen sees that the eruption did not dim and did not spread, the garment is declared impure and must be completely burnt. if the second re-evaluation reveals a dimming of the eruption, the kohen tears the area with the eruption from the garment and burns the torn out portion completely. the torn out area is patched to allow for a reinspection of the area for return of the lesion. if, the eruption returns to the patch, there is no confinement period instituted and the entire garment is completely burnt; if a lesion reappears on the garment but not on the patch, the garment must be burned but the patch can be saved. to recapitulate, if the lesion remained as it was after the first week of confinement, it is washed and reconfined. if it remained as it was after the second week of confinement, it is burned. if, however, upon the second re-evaluation, the lesion disappears, the garment must be immersed in a mikveh (ritual bath) and is then pure. fabrics and clothing affected by tzaraath were required by the text to be burnt entirely, unless it was the form of tzaraath that faded after washing but came back after being torn out, in which case it could be considered ritually pure as soon as the tzaraath had gone, and it had subsequently been washed. affliction of housing the third and last type of tzaraath mentioned by the torah affects buildings. if an individual notices an affliction on his house, he is to inform a kohen. the kohen will then command that they empty the house of all of its contents prior to his inspection; this is to prevent further financial loss, because should the house be confined, everything within it became impure as well. when the kohen comes to perform the inspection, he looks for lesions on the wall that appear either intense green (ירקרקת) or intense red (אדמדמת) and that appear sunken below the plane of the wall's surface (שפל מן הקיר, literally "lower than the wall"). if this is what he sees, the kohen exits the house and confines it for seven days. on the seventh day, upon re-evaluating the eruption, if the kohen sees that the eruption has spread beyond what it had been, the afflicted stones are removed, the area around the afflicted stones is scraped and both the removed stones and clay plaster are cast into a place of impurity. the void is filled with new stones and clay plaster and the house is confined for another seven days. if upon a second re-evaluation, the negah has returned after new stones have been plastered in, the negah is deemed tzaraath and the entire house must be dismantled. if the negah does not return, the house is pronounced pure, and the same purification process mentioned in relation to tzaraath of human flesh is employed here. tzaraath infections in houses were to be treated similarly harshly according to the biblical regulations, and didn't have any exceptions; stones showing the symptoms had to be removed, and the house had to be scraped, with the removed stones and scraped-off clay being cast into a rubbish heap outside the city, and if the infection returned once replacement stones were laid and daubed with clay, then the whole house had to be dismantled, with the rubble again going to the tip outside the city. additionally, people who had been in a house while it was infected with tzaraath was considered ritually impure until the evening came, and anyone who had eaten or slept there had to also wash their clothes. a house that was "healed" from tzaraat received a purification ritual virtually identical to that of a healed person, involving cedar-wood, scarlet, ezov, and two birds. however, the second half of the person's purification ritual, involving temple sacrifices, was not performed. in rabbinic judaism rabbinic tradition includes an extensive elaboration of the tzaraath laws recorded in the bible. the rabbinic laws of tzaraath appear in mishnah tractate nega'im. laws of skin rather than interpreting the biblical descriptions of tzaraath in the manner of modern doctors, classical rabbinical literature took an extremely literal view. this is shown in the following laws: in the group of symptoms where the hair of the inflicted region has turned white, the mishnah argues that plucking out the white hair was all that was required for the disease not to be considered tzaraath. since the biblical text mentions tzaraath occurring where boils had previously healed, but not where unhealed boils exist, the mishnah maintains that the appearance of the other symptoms in an unhealed boil or burn do not indicate tzaraath, and that if the boil or burn subsequently heals, it still does not indicate tzaraath, unless the other symptoms occur in parts of the body not previously diseased. sores smaller than the size of a lentil, those on the extremities of the body (such as the fingers, toes, ears, nose, breasts, etc.), and those that occur in hairy parts of the body, do not indicate tzaraath. rabbinic literature describes additional laws regarding priest's inspection of tzaraath: the kohen must be able to see the entirety of the lesion. thus, if the skin eruption or bald spot wraps around either the body or body parts, or occurs at the tip of terminal body parts—any place that would preclude the observation of the entire lesion at one time (i.e. wrapping around the torso, scalp or arm, or occurring at the tip of a finger or toe) – there can be no declaration of tzaraath. in a similar vein, a kohen who is blind in one eye or who cannot see well may not perform the inspections. an eligible kohen may inspect anyone, including his relatives, except himself. even a non-kohen may perform the inspection if they are proficient in the laws of nega'im, but only a kohen may declare purity or impurity. a non-kohen examiner may inform an accompanying inexpert kohen of his determination that a negah is or is not tzaraath and the kohen declares "purity" or "impurity". nega'im do not render impurity on parts of the body that are naturally concealed by other parts of the body according to specific regulations. for skin eruptions on the legs, men are inspected standing as though they are hoeing and women standing as though they are rolling dough. for eruptions on the arms, men raise their arms as though they are picking olives and women raise their arms as though they are weaving or spinning. nega'im do not render gentiles impure. a groom is exempt from visiting the kohen until the eighth day after his wedding for any nega'im on his flesh, garments or house. similarly, there are no inspections carried out on the days of passover, shavuot or sukkot. even on the days when inspections are performed, they are only allowed for two hours each day: during the fourth and eighth hour of the day (corresponding roughly to 9–10 am and 2–3 pm). if someone cuts off some skin or a part of his body to remove a tzaraat lesion, he becomes impure, even if he had no confirming signs. he may become pure only after another lesion forms. the exception is when a lesion appears on the tip of the foreskin and is cut off during circumcision, which is permitted, because a positive commandment overrides a negative commandment. additional laws relate to the sacrifice offered at the metzora's recovery: the sprinkling was done onto the back of his hand, or else (according to another opinion) on his forehead. the slaughtered bird was buried in the presence of the metzora. when the recovered metzora is shaved, this shaving excludes places similar to those in which nega'im are not subject to impurity. the dabbing of sacrificial blood on the recovered metzora caused some complication, because the metzora was not allowed into temple grounds prior to his purification process, while the blood of the offering was not allowed out of the temple grounds. to reconcile this dilemma, the metzora stuck these body parts through the gateway one at a time to receive the blood. the same was done with the oil from the flour offerings of the metzora. if the metzora lost any of these body parts after he was ready for purification, he could never obtain purification. the remaining portion of the olive oil from the purification offering, called in hebrew log shemen shel metzora, is retained by the kohen at the completion of his service. this portion is listed as one of the twenty-four kohanic gifts. laws of clothing there are a number of limitations to tzaraath as it applies to clothing: clothing belonging to a gentile are insusceptible to tzaraath. only sheep's wool is susceptible to a negah of tzaraath, although an even mixture of sheep's wool and another type of wool (camel's wool, for example) can be afflicted. in a similar vein, a mixture of plant fibers containing linen is insusceptible unless it is at least half linen. the leather referred to by the torah does not include the hides of marine animals. the fabric of wool or linen or leather article cannot be rendered impure by tzaraath if it is artificially dyed. if, however, the item is naturally colored (such as wool from a