“Prayer takes the place of sacrifice....”
Thank you. I’ve never heard that before. As a Christian that is something that I should remember and learn better.
I thought the Temple was needed for the sacrifice? Although I guess when it was just the Ark and tent it was okay. How do the ultra-orthodox do sacrifices now?
I recall in Sunday School the pastor reading from the Old Testament about the HUGE numbers of animals sacrificed as the Ark traveled (to the Temple for the first time?). Tens of thousands all along the way iirc. And then once they got to the Temple it was even more. It was pretty amazing the amount of personal value, energy and devotion that was put into their worship.
Hmm - which brings me back to prayer. How much value and energy and devotion do I put into that? Very little. (My old man would tell me he was always praying. In the car, waiting in lines, etc.)
Personally, I’ve never thought much for the idea of sacrifice, even from the Old Testament. It strikes me as a strain of primitivism that the ritualistic slaughter of an animal can expiate human sin.
But then, in the meaning of Israel, I argue and struggle with God quite often. It doesn’t devalue the overall validity of scripture for me in the sense that I sometimes see it as, say, the understanding of leprosy therein, which one would seem hard pressed not to recognize the fear of it then as primitively informed.
As for prayer, I pray mainly for others and very little for myself, knowing that God knows my heart, even at its most hidden levels. ...Except in the sense that your father seemed to understand it. “God, give me patience....”
All Good to You and Yours.