Moed Katan 7 Different Traps; How to Evaluate Nega Tzara'a

Our rabbis continue to provide us with examples of doing things differently on Intermediate Festival Days.  How do we capture small animals, for example?  In an unusual manner.  And what is an unusual manner?  The rabbis describe methods of catching and disposing of rodents.  Usually, they are caught in holes dug around the plant they might be targeting as food.  On Intermediate Festival Days, a contraption is rigged both below and above the rodents so that a hammer is dropped from above and the creatures are squashed from below.  It is difficult to imagine that this alternative is less work than ordinary trapping methods. But it is certainly different.

We move to the question of tzara'at, often translated as leprosy.  On weekdays, this skin condition is checked by a Kohen to determine whether the lesion, nega, is ritually pure or ritually impure.  But what about Intermediate Festival Days?  If a priest is consulted about a nega, he is allowed only to pronounce it ritually pure.  Should he be permitted to stay silent if the nega is ritually impure?  This would affect the person's wife, family, etc.  The rabbis debate whether or not a priest should look at nega tzara'at at all on a mode katan.

Again, we can see the shift toward leniency.  On Shabbat and other Holy Days, the importance of stringency is repeatedly stressed.  But on Intermediate Festival Days, the rabbis are extremely careful to balance the prescribed joy we should be feeling (and the desire to cause no problems following these days) with the need to keep all halachot.