Both written and oral law devote extensive space to sacrificial laws.
The prophetic tradition roundly condemns those who substituted the offering of sacrifices for true penitence, but at the same time the prophets never objected to sacrifices as such and denounced those who spoiled sacrifices by choosing flawed animals.
In the Second Temple period, the sages stated that the world rested on three things: the Torah, Temple worship, and charitable deeds.
The profound emotional attitude to Temple ritual did not wane in intensity after the destruction of the Temple.
Not only did the Jews continue to pray for the rebuilding of the Temple and restoration of worship and sacrifice (in the Shemoneh Esreh prayer and in part of the Musaf prayer on ceremonial occasions), but they continued to discuss and amend the laws of sacrifice.
Despite the historical and geographical distance, the Babylonian sages devoted considerable attention to the laws of sacrifice, their justification being that "he who engages in study of the laws of sacrifice should be regarded as if he had offered up sacrifice himself."
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
From The Essential Talmud by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz