[6] The same instruction appears concerning the purification of the zava (15:30). The metzora, too, is required to bring both a sin offering and a burnt offering, but in addition he brings a guilt offering, and there is also a special offering that is brought only by the metzora. See chapter 14.
[7] Impurity arising from contact with the dead; impurity arising from contact with an animal carcass; nidda (menstruation = the ‘death’ of an ovule that had the potential to become an embryo).
[8] It was customary in some places to bury the placenta.
[9] In his VBM article.
[10] From the Gemara in Nidda 31b
[11] From Rabbeinu Bechaye
[12] The view of Rabbi Elazar Ha-kapar in Ta’anit 11a, as well as the Rambam in his Laws of Knowledge, chapter 3, law 1, and in his Eight Chapters, chapter 4.
[13] This is the explanation offered in Midreshei ha-Torah, quoted in Iyunim be-Sefer Bamidbar by Nechama Leibowitz, p. 74.
Rabbanit Sharon Rimon. This originally appeared on The Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash.