Sefer HaChinuch ספר החינוך

The commandment of the meal-offering (minchah): To execute the procedure of the meal-offering in the matter that is mentioned in the Torah in its sections, as it is stated (Leviticus 2:1), “And if a soul offers a meal-offering,” and it is written (Leviticus 2:5), “If it is a meal-offering on a griddle,” and it is written further (Leviticus 2:6), “If it is a meal-offering in a pan.”

And the content of the meal-offerings is an offering that comes from types of flour and not from animals. And I have already written above (Sefer HaChinukh 95) that the sacrifice of animals is truthfully a strong resemblance to people, [in order] to humble and lower the desiring and sinful soul when he sees that a living thing like him — except that it does not have intellect — is burnt and finished. And so too is the sinning soul, from the angle of the weakness of its intellect, ending and lost also, if it becomes habituated to animal actions which are the sins — as sin only comes from an animal root.

But [this] offering in that it is not a living thing — even though it also comes to humble the impulse, such that man sees that because of his sin, he needs to burn [from] his money and finish it — the resemblance is not strong like with living things. And it appears according to the simple understanding that therefore is it called a gift (minchah) — as its content is less than a living sacrifice; just like gifts of people are usually with little. And also because many of them come as voluntary offerings — and that which is not obligated among people is called a gift.

And these are all the types of meal-offerings that they would offer at the time of the [Temple] that come on their own — meaning to say that they do not come as meal-offerings of libations, meaning in the context of another sacrifice: There are three meal-offerings that come for the sake of the entire community and they are (Menachot 68b) the omer of Pesach, the two breads of [Shavuot] and the bread of display of each Shabbat — and the three of them are called, “minchah.” And there are nine of the individual and these are them: 1) The meal-offering of a sinner — and that is the meal-offering that a poor person offers when he is liable for a sin-offering, but his hand does not reach [a more expensive sacrifice]; 2) the meal-offering of the sotah, which is the meal-offering of jealousy that is written in Parashat Nasso (Numbers 5:15); 3) the meal-offering that every priest offers when he enters the service that he offers in his hand, and this is called the meal-offering of inauguration; 4) the meal-offering that the high priest offers every day, and it is called the griddled meal-offering; 5) the meal-offering of fine flour, and it comes as an oath or a vow; 6) the meal-offering of the griddle, and it comes as an oath or a vow; 7) the meal-offering of the pan, and it comes as an oath or a vow; 8) the oven-baked meal-offering that is loaves, and it comes as an oath or a vow; 9) the oven-baked meal-offering that comes soaked in oil, and it comes as an oath or a vow. From these meal-offerings, some of them are fine wheat flour and some are barley; some of them are eaten by the priests except for the handful and some are all burnt. And one of them is chamets and that is the two breads of the day of Shavuot, as they are also called “minchah,” but they are not offered on top of the altar. And it was not stated in the Torah about the two breads, when it more generally forbade, “Any meal-offering that you offer to the Lord, you shall not make chamets” (Leviticus 2:11). [Rather,] it specified these and excluded them from the rule. And about them is it stated there (Leviticus 2:12), “A first sacrifice shall you bring them to the Lord” — meaning to say, with these I did not prohibit chamets to you. And nonetheless, they would not go up on the altar, since there was chamets in them, and as it is stated about them, “upon the altar they shall not be brought up as a pleasing smell.” And all of the rest was matsah. And the order of their bringing was thus (Sotah 14b): A man brings fine flour from his house in a vessel of silver or gold or of [another] metal and carries it to the priest; and the priest carries it to the altar, [he] skims a handful from it with the tips of his fingers and incinerates the handful; and the rest is eaten by the priests. This is the order of those eaten. And the order of those burned; the processes done with meal-offerings by non-priests and those done [only] by priests; and the rest of its details are elucidated in the tractate that is built upon this, and that is Tractate Menachot.

And the execution of meal-offerings was practiced at the time of the [Temple] by the males of the priesthood. And a priest who transgressed and changed the procedure of the meal-offering that is explicit about it has violated a positive commandment.