olpo25,

Your title jumped out at me because my own reading had taken through the chapters you refer to, Leviticus 11-16, only a couple weeks ago and I found the relevant notes in the New Geneva Study Bible very helpful. Here are a few lines from those notes, which are in line with what Robin just said as well.
Quote
From the NGSB notes: (my comments in italics)
Leviticus 11:1-16:34 ... "Clean" means "fit for God's presence" and "unclean" means "unfit for God's presence". Anyone who was unclean or who had come in contact with uncleanness was to abstain from public worship until he was cleansed. The basic idea is that God is perfect life, while the essence of uncleanness is death. ...
Quote
Leviticus 11:1-47 ... though all corpses are unclean ... some perfectly healthy creatures are also stated to be unclean in a milder sense. ... Carnivorous animals and birds of prey eat flesh with blood in it, something forbidden to human beings. (The notes then describe unclean animals symbolizing the Gentiles and clean animals--which alone could be sacrificed in the stead of people--representing the Israelites; the food distinction is explicitly abrogated in Acts 10 when the Gentiles are finally cleansed through Christ)
Quote
Leviticus 13:1-14:57 ... The close association of uncleanness with death is shown in 13:45. The person afflicted ... behaved as a mourner. He was excluded from the camp, not to protect the health of Israel, but because God was in the camp and uncleanness (death) had to be separated from the presence of God (life).
Quote
Leviticus 15:1-33 ... any loss of a "life fluid" suggested death and was incompatible with the presence of God, who is perfect life.

In order to understand the purpose of the ceremonial law, rather than speculate about a better approach, you really need to jump to the end of the book, and spend some time in Hebrews chs 9-10. Here it becomes clear that the ceremonial law was never a perpetual end in itself, but was inaugurated by God to prepare his people for the eternal cleansing to be accomplished by Jesus Christ. The uncleanness that he removes from us is not the mere symbols of sin and death, but the actual moral guilt which, if not removed by the blood of Christ, must separated forever from the thrice-holy God.
Quote
According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper,but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation.

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. (Hebrews 9:9-14, ESV)

In Christ,
Paul S