Prayer Replaces Sacrifices
With the destruction of the Temple and the automatic cessation of the sacrificial system, it was laid down that prayer took the place of the sacrifices. The Shaharit service was regarded as taking the place of the morning tamid and the Minhah service, the afternoon tamid. On all occasions when an additional offering was brought, the Musaf prayer was introduced (Ber. 4:1, 7; 26b). One of the rabbis later declared that prayer was even more efficacious than offerings (Ber. 32b). Nevertheless, the rabbis never ceased to look forward to the rebuilding of the Temple and the reinstitution of sacrifice during the messianic era. An additional supplication was introduced at the end of the Amidah requesting "that the Temple be speedily rebuilt in our days... And there we will serve Thee with awe... Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in ancient years" (Hertz Prayer Book, 157).
The revival of the sacrificial service must, likewise, be sanctioned by the divine voice of a prophet. The mere acquisition of the Temple mount or Palestine by Jews, whether by war or political combinations, could not justify the revival. It is only the return of the Jews to Palestine, and the rebuilding of the Temple by divine command and by divine intervention, that will be followed by the restoration of the sacrificial service (The Jewish Religion (1913), 417; cf. Maim. Yad, Melachim, 11:4).