Beginning on the previous daf, the Gemara introduced a dispute between Rabbi Akiva and the rabbis with regard to “the two marks of tzaraat that are four.” The Gemara brought a mishnah from Tractate Negaim to clarify what the four kinds of marks are:
The baheret is an intense white like snow, and secondary to it is a mark that is white like the lime plaster of the Sanctuary walls. The se’et is like white wool, and secondary to it is a mark that is white like the membrane of an egg.
To be diagnosed with tzaraat, a person must have a qualifying white mark on their skin that is the size of a geris, a kind of bean. The issue here is whether two smaller marks which together cover that much area can be combined to make the diagnosis.
According to this mishnah, there are four relevant shades of white. The two primary categories are the baheret (the purest white, like snow) and the se’et (the color of wool). Each of these has a sub-category which is also a shade of white. This is the disagreement: According to the rabbis, a primary mark can combine only with its designated secondary mark to produce a measure sufficient to render a person impure. But Rabbi Akiva classifies these four marks in order of brightness — snow white, wool white, lime white and egg white — and says each mark can combine with anything adjacent to it in the spectrum.
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In our day, we could use a standard medical text that has printed images used for comparison. But in the ancient world, the rabbis had to rely on what they could describe with words. They not only compare the shades of white to items people have likely seen, they also provide an analogy for how to think about the relationship between these different shades of white:
Rabbi Hanina says: The following is an analogy to illustrate the opinion of the rabbis. To what is this matter comparable? To two kings and to two governors. The king of this governor is above the king of that governor, and the governor of this king is above the governor of that king.
But this analogy suggests that the shades are ordered, this one above this one and that one above that one!
Rabbi Hanina initially compares the four shades of tzaraat marks to royalty and officials. Both kings are more important than their governors, and one king is more important than the other. But the Gemara points out that this is in fact a terrible analogy for the rabbis’ view of leprous spots and maps better onto Rabbi Akiva’s view of the colors as one spectrum in which both “kings” (primary categories) stand above the “governors” (secondary categories).
The Gemara tries again:
Rather, a suitable analogy is where the king of this governor is above his own governor, and the king of that governor is above his own governor.
Rather than thinking about how the kings compare to one another, the suggestion here is to understand the two sovereigns as simply superior to their respective officers: Snow is primary over lime; Temple white wash is primary over egg membrane.
Though we found a suitable analogy, the Gemara proceeds to bring another.
Rava suggests an alternative version that sharpens our understanding:
For example: King Shapur (the king of Persia) with his subordinate, and the Roman emperor with his subordinate.
Here we have two distant monarchs — one in Babylonia and one in Rome — and their respective subordinates, which preserves the rabbis’ notion of how to think about tzaraat marks. But even though the point of Rava’s analogy was to circumvent the notion of arranging the colors on a spectrum, he seems unable to escape it:
Rav Pappa said to Rava: Which of them is greater?
Rava said to him: Does he eat in the forest? Go out and see whose coin circulates throughout the world, as it is written with regard to the fourth empire described in Daniel’s dream of the future powers of the world: “It shall devour the whole earth and tread upon it and break it into pieces.” Daniel 7:23
Rabbi Yohanan says: This is the guilty empire of Rome whose coin circulates throughout the entire world.
While the Roman Empire and the Persian Empire are separate entities, they still exist within a shared global realm of politics. Within that realm, Rava acknowledges that the Roman emperor is ultimately superior in power to that of Persia, given the scope of their empire and the widespread usage of their coins. So his analogy for the rabbis’ understanding of tzaraat spots, while better than some that preceded it, still runs the risk of following Rabbi Akiva’s understanding, in which all four types exist along one singular spectrum. Ultimately, the halakhah here sides with the rabbis, but as this discussion shows, there’s an intuitive pull to Rabbi Akiva’s view.
Read all of Shevuot 6 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on May 7, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
