Q. How did the Jews daven while the Beis HaMikdash stood? Clearly not everyone brought korbanos every day.
A. Thanks for your question. Prayer has always existed. Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses all brought sacrifices but they also prayed. So, yes, our daily prayer services serve as replacements for the absent sacrifices but there were also prayers when sacrifices were offered. (It might interest you to know that there was a synagogue on the Temple Mount as part of the Beit HaMikdash complex.)
Some prayers, like Shema, are in the Torah and were recited since the Torah was given. The obligation to bentch is in the Torah and the text we use was written in stages, parts by Moshe, Yehoshua, Dovid and Shlomo.
Originally, people composed their own prayers. The Shemoneh Esrei was composed by the Men of the Great Assembly at the end of the Biblical period – again, while the Temple was standing – and standardized about 400 years later. So prayer and sacrifices definitely co-existed.
Q. How did the Jews daven while the Beis HaMikdash stood? Clearly not everyone brought korbanos every day.
A. Thanks for your question. Prayer has always existed. Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses all brought sacrifices but they also prayed. So, yes, our daily prayer services serve as replacements for the absent sacrifices but there were also prayers when sacrifices were offered. (It might interest you to know that there was a synagogue on the Temple Mount as part of the Beit HaMikdash complex.)
Some prayers, like Shema, are in the Torah and were recited since the Torah was given. The obligation to bentch is in the Torah and the text we use was written in stages, parts by Moshe, Yehoshua, Dovid and Shlomo.
Originally, people composed their own prayers. The Shemoneh Esrei was composed by the Men of the Great Assembly at the end of the Biblical period – again, while the Temple was standing – and standardized about 400 years later. So prayer and sacrifices definitely co-existed.
YL
Tamid 5:1 spells out the liturgy in the Beis haMiqdash. Not what the
Q asked for, since it doesn't list what was said in synagogues,
but interesting nonetheless.
Ahavah Rabba
Aseres haDiberos
Shema (3 paragraphs)
Emes veYatziv
Avodah ("Retzei" but without "vehasheiv es ha'vodah.." for obvious reasons)
Birkhas Kohanim
And on Shabbos they also gave the leaving mishmar a berakhah.
The memuneh over the goral would introduce Ahavah Rabba and the closing
berakhos by calling for them to bless the nation 1 and 3 berkhos,
respectively. Worth knowing that Ahavah Rabba was written for blessing
Kelal Yisrael, in addition to its roles as shevach to HQBH and a surrogate
Birkhas haTorah.
But both data points are in EY. Our siddurim derive from Rav Amram
Gaon. Could be EY vs Bavel, rather than then vs now. Or, maybe just R
Amram Gaon's siddur was longer, a one-off that became the norm.
In any case, Chassidim haRishonim, during bayis Sheini, took an hour
to say that shorter Shemoneh Esrei.
So, maybe we are using more words to compensate our inability to
find as much meaning in fewer words?
It looks like R' Heshy Zelcer's article in Hakirah was published a year
before Prof. Uri Ehrlich's book "Tefilat haAmida shel Yemot haChol," which
uses Geniza fragments to reconstruct different "branches" of both Minhag EY
and Minhag Bavel. In most cases, the nusachim that are in widespread use
today (by Sefaradim and Ashkenazim) are pretty similar to various branches
of Minhag Bavel (which was, indeed, as R' Micha speculated, more verbose
than Minhag EY).
Prof. Shumlamit Elizur has made the case that the original Shmoneh Esrei
(the one that took the "chasidim harishonim" an hour to say) was
significantly longer than either of those, and that what we are used to
saying nowadays is actually the condensed version, the "me'ein shmoneh
esrei" referred to by R' Yehoshua and R' Akiva in the mishna. This would
be consistent with the view of Rav (Berachos 29a) that "me'ein shmoneh
esrei" refers to a condensed version of each beracha, rather than the view
of Shemuel that it refers to a combined beracha of "Havinenu."
How then does he explain the need to spend an hour getting back to the
real world afterward?
Saying more at the same pace we do... Would it be the kind of experience
need so much cool-down? The warm-up and cool-down times really argue
for R' Aryeh Kaplan's assumption that their davening was a meditative
experience far far more so than the length of time they spent davening.
Which would mean fewer words, said with far more time and intent
per word. Maybe something in between -- a somewhat longer Amidah,
but not nearly so much longer as to account for the majority of the
time difference.