Thazria-Metzorah: malignancy

The parshioth describe  diagnostic criteria for negaim, usually translated as plagues. These are disease-like entities with visual surface abnormalities that affect the skin, clothing, houses. They render their victims tamei, isolated and useless.

On three occasions the nega is described as mamereth, translated as malignant.  The property that makes these mamereth (malignant) is that they recur.  Recurrence is the malignant property. It doesn’t go away.  You cut it out,  you damaged the cloth or the house to remove the nega, you took out a clean margin... and it came back.  It is bad news, it is malignant. Your attempts at cure have failed. Failure is a component of the malignant.

The nega of tzorath has cancer-like properties. It spreads, it recurs,  and the purification process involves losing all the hair.

metzorah last year

thazriah last year with  links further back