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“26:46. These are the laws and the judgments and the instructions. The present age plainly appears to value the ethical more than the ritual in religion. Some even feel the need to justify ritual by attempting to connect each ritual act to some ethical value: "We keep kosher to remind us to care about animals; we wear fringes to remind us to be kind...." This is misleading. Certainly ritual acts can have consequences in the ethical realm, but that is not their reason for being. If we are to understand Leviticus, we must have an appreciation for what ritual meant in its society intrinsically.” — Richard Elliott Friedman
26:46. These are the laws and the judgments and the instructions. The present age plainly appears to value the ethical more than the ritual in religion. Some even feel the need to justify ritual by attempting to connect each ritual act to some ethical value: "We keep kosher to remind us to care about animals; we wear fringes to remind us to be kind...." This is misleading. Certainly ritual acts can have consequences in the ethical realm, but that is not their reason for being. If we are to understand Leviticus, we must have an appreciation for what ritual meant in its society intrinsically.