You can live without it as it is for radio noise suppression. If I remember it goes on + side of coil. I have seem them go bad and it kills ignition dead. It will drive you crazy ask me how I know.
A car with POINTS distributor almost always uses TWO "condensers"
1.....inside the distributor which not only protects the points but is necessary to form the spark
2....One on the coil + side for radio suppression. Even the Mopar breakerless systems used these.
Additionally on Mopars, there's a cap / condenser inside the alternator across the output stud for a filter, and another mounted on the dash cluster to supress hash from the instrument voltage regulator.