This happened when Israel Putnam was a young man.
He was the foremost Jewish figure of the 18th century, and to him is attributable the renaissance of the House of Israel.
All access to the Deity is restricted to the one priesthood and to the one sanctuary at Jerusalem; the worshipping subject is the nation of Israel as a unity, and the function of worship is discharged on its behalf by divinely chosen priests.
In fact, while Robertson Smith (in Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, as well as his Religion of the Semites, followed by Stade and Benzinger) strongly advocated the view that clear traces of totemism can be found in early Israel, later writers, such as Marti, Gesch.
Religion, 4th ed., p. 24, Kautzsch in his Religion of Israel already cited, p. 613, and recently Addis in his Hebrew Religion, p. 33 foll., have abandoned the theory as applied to Israel. ?