Hi. I am wondering what is the rationale of Rebbi's opinion that a confirmed Metzora can have marital relations with his wife when he is still Tamei but he cannot have relations with her if he is in the midst of his seven days of counting. I would have thought that if he is a confirmed Metzora he should not be able to have relations with her because of his Tumah state.
Asher Breatross
(1) In fact, Tumah is not a reason that a person should be forbidden to have relations. One sees this in the Gemara Pesachim (top of 67b) which states that a Metzora possesses a stringency that a Zav (a person who is tamei because of emissions from his body - see Vayikra 15:1-15) does not possess; namely that a Metzora is forbidden to have relations. Rashi DH v'Asur writes that a Zav is not forbidden to have relations.
(2) The fact that the Metzora is forbidden to have relations is learned from what the Torah states (Vayikra 14:8) that after the Metzora becomes Tahor he must sit outside his tent for 7 days. The Gemara states that "his tent" refers to the Metzora's wife. It may be that because Tzora'as is a punishment for speaking Lashon Hara, and because this bad talk may often cause arguments between husband and wife, therefore the Torah taught that as part of the Teshuvah of the Metzora, he must be separate from his wife for 7 days in order to atone for the divisiveness that he caused to others by his careless words.
(3) However, generally speaking the prohibition against relations is not given to a person merely because he is Tamei. Rather the prohibition applies to people who are forbidden to rejoice such as a mourners. Similarly, a person who has been put in "Cherem" (excommunication) is also forbidden to have relations since he is compared to a mourner because he has temporarily been cut off from society, and may not rejoice. We see from all this that generally speaking there is not necessarily a connection between Tumah and between a prohibition on marital relations
Kol Tuv,
Dovid Bloom