expect if all death were in view. By contrast, genital discharges that were not physically dangerous caused defilement (Lev. 15). So Maccoby convincingly narrows the death focus of physical ritual impurity to “an expression of the birth-death cycle that comprises mortality.”25 This impurity/mortality is diametrically opposed to holiness/life. Like physical ritual impurities, sins are related to death, but in a different way. Inexpiable sins result in destruction: the death of the sinner and/or the