Parashat Vayikra – Summary

• With the completion of the Mishkan's construction in Sefer Shemot, Parashat Vayikra outlines the basics of the Mishkan's sacrificial service – the various types of animal and grain offerings brought on the altar.
  
  
• Burnt Sacrifices – Chapter 1 opens with the first of the voluntary offerings, the burnt sacrifice ("עֹלָה") that was fully consumed on the sacrificial altar.
• Meal Offerings – Chapter 2 describes the five varieties of meal offerings ("מִנְחָה").
• Peace Offerings – Chapter 3 concludes the list of voluntary offerings with the peace offering ("שְׁלָמִים"), whose meat was to be divided among the person bringing the sacrifice, the priests, and the altar.
• Sin Offerings – Chapter 4 outlines the laws of the various types of sin offerings ("חַטָּאת") brought to atone for unintentional transgressions. Different sacrifices were brought depending on whether the sinner was a high priest, the entire community, the king, or an ordinary person.
• Variable Cost and Guilt Offerings – Chapter 5 describes the variable-cost sin offering ("עוֹלֶה וְיוֹרֵד") brought for withholding testimony, being in a state of impurity (while entering a holy place or partaking from a sacrifice), or unintentionally violating an oath. The type of offering depended on the sinner's financial status. This chapter also describes the guilt offering ("אָשָׁם") that was brought for: inadvertent misappropriation of an item belonging to the Sanctuary, uncertain transgression of a Biblical prohibition, or false denial of holding another's property in one's possession.

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