Musar su Esodo 22:19

לא תשתחוה להם. This means that when one prostrates oneself before a graven image or idol, though this may not be the normal way in which such an idol is worshipped, one is guilty of idol-worship, because prostrating oneself before G–d is the way of service in the Holy Temple before the Almighty. The act of השתחויה is a definite form of worship. We are told in Exodus 22,19: "Whoever sacrifices to a god other than the Lord alone shall be proscribed" [is subject to the death penalty by stoning. Ed]. While it is true that we learn from Exodus 22,19 that any acts that constitute normal worship such as slaughtering the animal, burning its flesh on the altar, pouring libations of wine on the altar, etc., are all actions punishable by death when performed in honour of other deities (regardless of whether such acts are part of the system in which that particular deity is worshipped), the question is why the Talmud did not derive the prohibition of prostrating oneself from this verse in Exodus. Prostrating oneself, which does not involve a sacrificial act, could not be derived from the words זובח in Exodus 22,19. Hence a special verse was needed for this prohibition. The act of prostrating oneself symbolises that one humbles oneself utterly and thus becomes culpable.

The great sage Rabbi Moshe Nachmanides already alludes to the קרבן aspect of this meal when he writes as follows: "Perhaps Abraham knew that the part of the food offered first would disappear." One may infer from those words that just as Manoach experienced the sudden disappearance of his offering together with the angel (Judges 13,20), Abraham was aware of the procedure and expected the angels to disappear. It is quite clear that Manoach had not built an altar, he had only made use of an existing rock to offer an offering upon it. (ibid.) The "altar" mentioned there in the book of Judges refers to the Celestial Altar, the region the angel had descended from. This is why he had said to Manoach "do not detain me, since I cannot eat from your bread." The reason he could not do so was that it was פיגול, unacceptable in principle, seeing that one must not offer a sacrifice to one of G–d's angels or other agents. Offerings, even when acceptable, must be offered only to G–d directly. (Judges 13,16). We also have a specific verse in the Torah precluding the offering of sacrifices to an intermediary i.e. בלתי לה' לבדו, "only to G–d Himself" (Exodus 22,18)צ Assuming Abraham was aware of this, he could not have meant for this bread to be eaten, for he knew that angels do not eat. His intention had been that this bread would serve exclusively as a meal offering to G–d in recognition of the fact that G–d had appeared to him while he was awake and able to move around freely. Our sages in Bereshit Rabbah 48,4 take the view that G–d's appearance was in response to Abraham having circumcised himself. G–d reasoned that just as He appears to someone who builds an altar for him and offers a sacrifice (by allowing that sacrifice to be consumed by Heavenly fire), if someone performs circumcision on his own body, such an act certainly deserves to be acknowledged by G–d appearing to such a person. Abraham understood the fact that G–d had revealed Himself to him as an outpouring of G–d's bounty, as is normal when G–d accepts someone's offering. He now wanted to offer a real (additional) offering in order to draw down still more of G–d's blessings.