EXOD187 The historical value of certain precepts, such as the sacrifices, served a useful educational purpose at a time when the people were not ready for more spiritual forms of worship. … in a similar manner did God provide for each individual animal of the class of mammilia. When such an animal is a born it is extremely tender, and cannot be fed with dry food. Therefore, breasts were provided which yield milk, and the young can be filled with liquid food which corresponds to the condition of the limbs of the animal, until the latter have gradually become dry and hard. Many precepts in our Law are the result of a similar course adopted by the same Supreme Being. It is namely impossible to go suddenly from one extreme to the other; it is therefore according to the nature of man impossible for him suddenly to discontinue everything to which he has become accustomed. Now God sent Moses to make the Israelites a kingdom of priests and a holy nation by means of the Knowledge of God [Deuteronomy 4:35; 5:39] The Israelites were commanded to devote themselves to His service.… but the custom which was in those days general among all men, and the general mode of worship in which the Israelites were brought up, consisted in sacrificing animals in those temples which contained certain images, to bow down to those images and to burn incense before them.... It was in accordance with the wisdom and the plan of God, as displayed in the whole creation, that He did not command us to give up and to discontinue all these manners of service, for to obey such a commandment would have been contrary to the nature of man, who generally cleaves to that to which he is used; it would in those days have made the same impression as a prophet would make at present if he called us to the service of God and told us in His Name that we should not pray to Him, not fast, not seek His help in time of trouble; that we should serve Him in thought, not by any action.... There occurs in the Law a passage which contains exactly the same idea; it is [this verse]. [Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed, III, 32.]