עקידת יצחק — אדם כי יקריב מכם / קרבן לה'

Q — What does an animal offering accomplish before God, who needs nothing? Why so many categories — chovah and nedavah, chatas and olah and shelamim? Why "אדם כי יקריב מכם" — from yourselves?

A — The korban works by bringing a person to internalize that what is done to the offering ought, by his sin, to have been done to him — the placing of hands, the slaughter, the fire all turn his heart so that he draws near to his Maker. "From yourselves" reveals the mechanism: the animal stands in for the offerer's own self-surrender. The varied categories map the varied movements of the soul — guilt, gratitude, devotion — each channeling a different path of kirvas Elokim.