After reading about the parasha on the website, I feel I need help understanding the part about sending out of the camp those having a "zav". The website reads:

"Just as the absence of the Beit-ha-Mi•qәdâsh′ precludes animal qor•bân•ot′, the absence of such separate facilities in one's community precludes keeping this mi•tzәw•âh′. As a result of modern standards of hygiene, such facilities are no longer relevant. Nor is it proper to revert to ancient standards in order to restore the relevance of such facilities."

I understood the first part - we can't utilize facilities that we don't have. But as for the second part, I struggle to imagine a mitzwah becoming "no longer relevant" or "ancient". Building these facilities would not be appropriate?

Perhaps you can see how this appears to me, as throwing out a mitzwah due to the inconveniences it would incur. But I certainly don't take you for the sort who would just discard mitzwot, so please help me understand what I'm missing.

תודה רבה

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This is an excellent question, and illustrative of many of the most vexing questions about understanding Tor•âhꞋ . This question doesn't start here, and it won't end here. It's a continuing struggle to understand the principles of Tor•âhꞋ , which are the real mitz•wotꞋ , in contradistinction to a superficial literalist reading – which is all that most clerics, even including most Orthodox rabbis, can grasp. Like Hi•leilꞋ  and RibꞋ i Y^әho•shuꞋ a, the Ram•ba"mꞋ  was a towering exception.

Allow me to caricature. Suppose the Bible said that "If your neighbor is sick you must get on your donkey, ride a day's journey and tend your neighbor." Would it be stipulating a mitz•wâhꞋ  that you must own a donkey? A mitz•wâhꞋ  that you must ride a donkey? A mitz•wâhꞋ  that you must ride a donkey a day's journey before you can tend your sick neighbor? Or would the mitz•wâhꞋ  be the principle: that you should care for your neighbor's welfare?

The difficulty is relating to the Biblical era, Yi•s^ә•râ•eil•iꞋ  authors and Yi•s^ә•râ•eil•iꞋ  audience to glean the principles – the mitz•wotꞋ  – they were teaching in contrast to superficial literalist legalisms that, unfortunately, overwhelm the mentality of historically and scientifically illiterate clerics from all "Abrahamic" religions, even including too many Orthodox rabbis.

Historical illiterates are incapable of gleaning the principles from the background. As a result, there is, on the one hand, a preponderance of literalist fanatics insisting on living in ghettos and dressing in costumes while, at the other end of the spectrum, reformers throw out the principles with the background – the baby with the bathwater. There are precious few capable of gleaning and preserving the principles – Tor•âhꞋ , mitz•wotꞋ  and Ha•lâkh•âhꞋ  – while not being buried in the ancient background framework, without which the authors of the Bible couldn't have explained the principles to Yi•s^ә•râ•eilꞋ .

So what is the principle, the mitz•wâhꞋ , here? First, we have to concede that this is arguable and, within the limits of logic and reason, we must be tolerant of interpretations.

There has always been the recognition, within Yi•s^ә•râ•eilꞋ , that the mitz•wâhꞋ  here is טָהֳרַת הַמִּשׁפָּחָה – family purification; popularly (and a bit inaccurately), "family purity." The principle, or mitz•wâhꞋ , is family hygiene (which includes a degree of separation and abstinence from marital relations, the definition of which, for their era, the rabbis were able to reach a consensus on, during the stipulated periods), not building a separate camp. Your required reading in the Syllabus teaches the basics of this topic (The Jewish Way in Love and Marriage) – which I don't see that you've read yet?

Notice, however, that the rabbis' definition for their era, preserves the principle – the mitz•wâhꞋ  – as applied to their own era in a changing world. Notice, too, that our world has changed since the rabbinic era as well, and that tomorrow's world will be changed from ours. To preserve the principle, the mitz•wâhꞋ , requires relating to, and applying, dynamically because, while the mitz•wotꞋ  don't change, the physical and technical circumstances of the world does.

Moreover, where literalists have prevented the principles from being kept contemporary, vibrant and relevant – to instead become irrelevant and degrade into obsolescence – the original intent of the mitz•wotꞋ  must be restored in light of the median educational, intellectual and spiritual level of Yi•s^ә•râ•eilꞋ  today, which (though often woefully primitive) is far advanced from that of the time of the Y^әtzi•âhꞋ  – and will change further tomorrow.

To answer your question: the mitz•wotꞋ  will always remain relevant; and some that have been allowed to become irrelevant must be restored. But the background cultural aspects that make it relevant or irrelevant to the general population of Yi•s^ә•râ•eilꞋ  must be updated to our world. That this hasn't been done is why 90+% of the flock of Yi•s^ә•râ•eilꞋ  has rejected the primitive literalist (inaccurately "fundamentalist") illiteracy of "the rabbis" and, as a direct result of those false shepherd rabbis, many have strayed from Tor•âhꞋ .

The principle is טָהֳרַת הַמִּשׁפָּחָה – in our own day, not in the Biblical day the authors lived in. What is needed to achieve the same mitz•wâhꞋ  today (medically, technologically, scientifically, etc.) has changed from what was available to Yi•s^ә•râ•eilꞋ  in the Biblical period. In a technologically (and even climatically and topographically) changing world, each era must adapt to its own day in order to keep the same mitz•wotꞋ .