Attendance at Festivals

Ritual sacrifice could normally be conducted only in the Temple and not at home. Philo, writing in Alexandria in the first half of the first century CE (while the Jerusalem Temple still stood), says that Moses established this restriction as a test of faith. It requires adherents to leave home and family, to brave the dangers posed by travel, and to worship in a land far from home. The result is large masses of pilgrims converging on Jerusalem and the Temple, where they find spiritual uplift as well as a convivial community.