The second half of the book of Exodus—whose reading we concluded last week—was taken up primarily with the details of the Sanctuary’s construction; in Exodus’ concluding verses we read how the Sanctuary was erected and the Divine Presence came to dwell in it. Thus the Sanctuary commenced its function as the “Tent of Meeting” between G‑d and man: the place that is the focus of man’s endeavor to serve his Creator, and where G‑d communicated to man and made His presence felt within a humanly constructed abode.

In the Parshah of Vayikra, which opens the book of Leviticus, G‑d speaks to Moses from the Tent of Meeting and begins His communication of the laws governing the bringing of the korbanot, the animal and meal offerings that are the central feature of the service performed in the Sanctuary.

The first korban to be described is the olah, the “ascending” offering (commonly referred to as the “burnt offering”), whose distinguishing feature is that it is raised to G‑d, in its entirety, by the fire atop the altar.

The olah can also be a male sheep or goat, in which case the same procedure is followed.

A turtledove or young pigeon can also be brought as an “ascending offering.” Instead of being slaughtered through shechitah (cutting of the throat), the bird is killed by melikah—nipping off the head from the back of the neck. The blood is applied to the wall of the altar, and the bird's crop and its adjoining feathers are removed and discarded; then the bird’s body is burned upon the altar.

Meal Offerings

Meal offerings, called menachot (“gifts”), are prepared of fine flour, with olive oil and frankincense. The priest removes a kometz (“handful”—actually the amount grasped by his three middle fingers), to be burned on the altar; the remainder is eaten by the priests.

There are five types of donated meal offerings: 1) the standard “meal offering,” brought as raw flour; 2) the “baked meal offering,” which came in two forms: loaves or 3) flat matzot; 4) the “pan-fried” meal offering; 5) the minchat marcheshet, deep-fried in a pot.

The following rule applies to all the meal offerings (including the “loaves”):

Another rule is that

This latter rule applies to all korbanot: “With all your offerings you shall offer salt.”

Another meal offering mentioned here is the minchat bikkurim (also called the “Omer”) brought on the second day of Passover from the year’s very first barley harvest. In this minchah, the kernels are roasted by fire before they are ground into flour.

(In addition, a meal offering accompanied all animal offerings.)

The Peace Offering

The shelamim, or “peace offering,” could be either male or female, and from either “the herd” (i.e., an ox or a cow) or “the flock” (a sheep or a goat).

Like the olah, its blood was sprinkled upon the altar; but unlike the olah, which “ascended” in its entirety upon the altar, the meat of the shelamim was eaten by the “owner”—the one who brought the offering (two portions of the animal, the breast and the right thigh, were eaten by the priests). Only certain parts of the animal were burned on the fire atop the altar:

If the peace offering is a sheep, “the whole fat tail, up to the backbone” was added to these.

Because they are offered to G‑d on the altar, these specified veins of fat, which the Torah calls cheilev, are forbidden for consumption in all domestic animals: “It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your habitations: all cheilev and all blood you shall not eat.”

The Sin Offerings

The korbanot discussed up to this point are “donations”—offerings pledged out of a desire to give to G‑d. Now the Torah moves on to discuss obligatory offerings, such as the chatat, the “sin offering” brought to atone for an inadvertent transgression of the Divine will.

Different offerings are prescribed depending on the stature of the transgressor.

A similar offering is also brought in the case where the entire community commits a transgression as a result of an erroneous ruling by the Sanhedrin (high court).

Both the high priest’s sin offering and that of the congregation were distinguished in that each had to be a male bullock (the ordinary sin offering was a female sheep or goat); it had to be offered by the high priest; its blood was sprinkled “indoors”—inside the Sanctuary, on the golden altar and opposite the parochet; after the cheilev was burned on the altar, the rest of the animal was not eaten by the priests (as was the case with ordinary sin offerings), but rather “the skin of the bullock and all its flesh, with its head, its legs, its innards and its dung—the whole bullock—he shall carry outside the camp to a clean place . . . and burn it on the wood with fire.”

A nassi (king) who commits an inadvertent transgression brings an offering similar to the standard sin offering, except that it must be a male goat.

Anyone else who sins inadvertently, brings

With certain transgressions (such as failure to fulfill an oath to bear witness, or entering the Sanctuary in a state of ritual impurity), the sin offering brought depended on the financial ability of the transgressor. One who could not afford a female sheep or goat brought two turtledoves or two young pigeons—one bird to be brought as an “ascending offering” and the second bird as a sin offering. A person of even lesser means, who could not even afford two birds, brought a meal offering: “he shall put no oil upon it, nor shall he put any frankincense upon it, for it is a sin offering.”

Guilt Offerings

For certain transgressions, the offering brought in atonement is not a “sin offering” but an asham (“guilt offering”). An asham is distinguished from the standard sin offering in that it was a male sheep, and that it had to be worth at least “two shekels of silver of the shekel of the Sanctuary.”

Three types of asham are described in our Parshah. The first is brought by one who unintentionally made unauthorized use of property belonging to the Sanctuary—a crime called me’ilah (“betrayal”). He must pay back what he had expropriated, adding to that an additional one-fifth of its value, and also bring an asham to obtain atonement for his unintentional trespass.

A second type of “guilt offering” is the asham talui, brought by one who thinks he may have unwittingly committed a transgression, but is not sure. (For example, he had two pieces of meat before him and ate one of them; later, he discovers that one of them was cheilev—forbidden fat—a trespass which would obligate him to bring a sin offering if he would know with certainty that he committed it.)

The third and last asham of our Parshah is the one brought in atonement by one who swears falsely in the process of defrauding his fellow man: