ספֿרי מצוות אויף ויקרא 2:4

To observe the procedure of the meal-offering, as it is said, “And when any will offer a meal-offering” (Lev. 2:1).

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.