So why not give the three weeks a miss this year for a refreshing change.....Might turn out to be a good thing.
Though upon reflection, I would suggest that a routine lifestyle is perfectly normal, whereas habitual behaviour without consideration for consequences could obviously have a negative impact in the long term.
Anyway, thanks for the discussion and you stay safe too.
Ritualism is the common practice of going through the motions of daily life even though one does not accept the goals or values that align with those practices.
Jesus is a perfect example of a Jew that embraced Judaism and all its symbolic rituals like circumcision and Sabbath yet criticized the Jews as prophet killers.
Jesus frequently visited the Synagogue (Mark 3; Luke 13) so He obviously kept the Sabbath and He also attended the Jewish festivals or high days including the Passover (John 2:13, 6:4, 11:55) even from His youth (Luke 2:41-43). Jesus not only regularly attended Synagogue on the Sabbath but He taught there too as Matthew writes “when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching” (Matt 21:23. )
Jesus followed the law and so did His parents for after His birth it was “at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised” (Luke 2:21a) and being the first born He was consecrated “And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons” (Luke 2:22-24). Not only this but Jesus kept the Holy Days, as we have already read as He kept the Passover but also the Feast of Tabernacles or Feast of Booths (John 7:2) and “About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching” (John 7:14). He had been observing the Holy Days since He was a child, regularly attending with His parents (Luke 2:41-42) and observed all the Law of Moses.
Jesus even expanded on the laws.
Contrary to what most might think Jesus said “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:17-19).
But what didJesus call the Jews despite follow Jewish rituals?
Matt 23:31 and Luke 11:47 Jesus accuses his Jewish opponents of killing prophets. The gospel texts provide no basis for this charge, other than the conflict that Jesus seems to be facing at the moment. Even the one prophetic figure whose death has affected Jesus, John the Baptist, was not killed in Jerusalem, but was executed, according to the gospel accounts, by Herod Antipas who ruled Galilee and Perea. On the contrary, the accusation of killing prophets and the success of the Israelite prophetic materials in getting proclaimed, recorded, transmitted, and canonized stand in tension with each other. Where does this idea come from and what makes it a viable assumption in the kinds of accusations made by Jesus in these texts?