Nazir 60: Uncertainly Impure Nazirite and Uncertain Leper: When Can I Drink?

Yesterday's daf ended with a Mishna describing the case of a nazirite who immediately becomes impure as a matter of uncertainty and also is a confirmed metzora, leper, as a matter of uncertainty.  A leper has to shave at the start and end of his/her week long purification process.  A nazirite cannot shave at all.  A leper cannot eat sacrificial food, but a nazirite can.  The Mishna teaches that this particular nazirite can partake of sacrificial food sixty days after becoming impure.  S/he shaves after thirty days for the tzaarat, leprosy, and s/he must wait another thirty days to end his/her purification by shaving again.  At that point s/he is a purified leper who is permitted to eat sacrificial food.  

Drinking wine is another matter.  S/he must wait 120 days to end his/her naziriteship.  This is because of the uncertainties: If s/he was impure from a corpse, thirty additional days are required in nazirut because shaving after ninety days was required for the impurity.  The final thirty days of nazirut are done in purity as a full nazirite.  We also learn that if the tzaarat is certain, the nazirite can shave after seven days and then shave again after fourteen days.  Certain leprosy allows its rituals to override those of nazirut.  But in uncertain cases, a person with leprosy must wait until the thirty days (minimum time of nazirut) to shave at all.

Today's Gemara focuses on the details of this detailed Mishna.  What if the naziriteship was one year?  A long naziriteship would offer fewer opportunities for the nazirite to shave, stretching this entire process out by years.  And which sin-offerings, burnt-offerings, guilt-offerings or offerings of purity should be brought at the end of this naziriteship?  The rabbis suggest a number of ways that different birds might play more than one role should the nazirite require different offerings due to uncertainties.  

The Gemara continues in this vein, counting the number of days that might be required in a number of different situations.  From shaving to eating sacrificial food to drinking wine to removing hair to  sprinkling blood to bringing offerings to immersing, the rabbis are exacting in their examination of when a nazirite/uncertain leper is permitted to complete each ritual.

Again, the notion of tumah, ritual impurity, reminds me of the cooties, and it is a struggle for me to picture entire communities following these halachot.