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NUMBERS | 15:39 look — NUM187 … all religions have developed their own t...

NUM187 … all religions have developed their own technique for self-expression. Their leaders have felt that the religious sense, like any other, if left to itself, runs the danger of wasting away or returning to seed and of developing along irrational and anti-social lines, examples of which abound in history. They have, therefore, sought to direct into channels that are socially as well as personally useful. They have cast it into forms that are aesthetically satisfying and morally stimulating. Out of the experience of the group, nation or community, they have selected elements that may serve as behavior patterns and have set them up as signs and symbols of the sacred. These forms and ceremonies express the spiritual strivings and the moral ideals of the religious community. They serve as effective means in the religious education of the people in holding them together as a united body. Though often practiced blindly, they tend to evoke something of the spirit which called them forth. The Midrash calls attention to the sequence of the verbs in (this verse)--"Ye shall look upon it (the fringe), and remember all the commands of the Lord, and do them" – – and remarks that "seeing leads to remembering, and remembering to doing." Tanhuma, Old, Shelah, 15.

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Verse15:39
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