R’ Eliezer was asked: ‘‘[What is the law if] a baheres the size of a sela grows on the inside of someone’s hand, and it is on a partially-healed boil?’’ He said to them: ‘‘[The Kohen] should confine [him].’’ They said to him: ‘‘Why? [The baheres] cannot grow [white] hair, nor can it expand, not does it become tamei if it contains a michyah.’’ He said to them: ‘‘Maybe [the baheres] will contract and [subsequently] expand.’’ They said to him: ‘‘But [what if the partially healed boil] is the size of a gris?’’ He said to them: ‘‘I was not taught.’’ R’ Yehudah ben Beseira said to [R’ Eliezer]: ‘‘I can expound on this [subject].’’ He [R’ Eliezer] said to him [R’ Yehudah ben Beseira]: ‘‘If it is to uphold the words of the Sages, you may.’’ He said to him: ‘‘Perhaps another boil will develop next to it into which [the nega] will spread.’’ He said to him: ‘‘You are a great sage, for you have upheld the words of the Sages.’’

Nesakim can become [confined] tamei for two weeks, [and are confirmed tamei] with two symptoms: with deficient blond hair or with expansion. Deficient blond hair [means] damaged [by being] short, these are the words of R’ Akiva. R’ Yochanan ben Nuri says: Even long. Said R’ Yochanan ben Nuri: What do people mean when they say, ‘‘This stick is ‘dak’ ’’ [or] ‘‘This reed is ‘dak’ ’’? [Don’t they mean] it is very thin, disregarding whether it is short or long? R’ Akiva said to him: Before we learn from a reed, we should learn from hair. [When people say] ‘‘So-and-so’s hair is ‘dak,’  ’’ [they use] ‘‘dak’’ [to mean] very short, not long [and very thin].

Deficient blond hair renders [the nesek] tamei whether together or scattered; surrounded or not surrounded; changed [by the nega] or not changed, these are the words of R’ Yehudah. R’ Shimon says: It only renders tamei if changed [by the nega]. Said R’ Shimon: It is a logical argument. If white hair, whose tumah is not curtailed by other hair, renders [a nega] tamei only if it was changed [by the preexisting nega], should not deficient blond hair, which is curtailed by other hair, render tamei only when changed? R’ Yehudah says: Wherever the [Torah] needs to say ‘‘changed,’’ it says ‘‘changed.’’ However, a nesek, about which it says ‘‘it had no blond hair within it,’’ renders [the nesek] tamei whether changed or not changed.

‘‘New growth’’ saves from blond hair and from expansion, [whether] together or scattered, surrounded or not surrounded. ‘‘Remaining hair’’ saves from blond hair and from expansion, [whether] together or scattered, [but only] surrounded; [when it is] on the side it does not save unless it is two hair-spaces distant from where the hair grows normally. One blond [hair] and one black [hair], [or] one blond [hair] and one white [hair] do not save.