Our Gemara on Amud Beis discusses the parallels of the sacrificial rituals of an animal versus a mincha. For example, the handful of flour that is taken from the mincha for the altar is parallel to slaughtering, as it activates the sacrifice. The Gemara wonders how placing the handful in the vessel is comparable to accepting the blood in the vessel.

At first, the Gemara considers this not parallel, as it declares: “If we say that the meal-offering is piggul because the placing of the handful into a vessel is comparable to the collection of the blood of a slaughtered offering into a service vessel, one can ask: Are these rites in fact comparable? There, in the case of animal offerings, the blood enters the vessel by itself, whereas here, the priest takes the handful from the meal-offering and casts it into the vessel.”

At this point in the reasoning, there is a logical disconnection between passively accepting an outpouring of blood versus actively placing the handful.

However, after some give and take, the Gemara declares the opposite: “What difference is it to me if the permitting factor enters the vessel by itself or whether one takes the item and casts it into the vessel?”

We must ask, what accounts for this 180-degree U-turn—from finding placing the handful into the vessel as dissimilar and logically unmatched to receiving a pouring, and then declaring it to be, really, the same thing?

I believe this is the idea. At first, the reasoning was that accepting the pouring out of the animal’s blood was a humbling process that induces meditations about mortality and the endpoint of matter returning to God. This must be passive in order to truly digest and accept our vulnerability and temporality in comparison to God. Placing a handful simply does not induce the same state. However, the Rabbis relented to a softer stance. Though perhaps not as perfect a meditation or repentance, the person, after all, still has a goal of sacrifice and service. Metaphorically speaking, “The goal is to end up with the item in the holy vessel. What’s the ultimate difference how it got there?” In other words, the person’s goal is humility and return to God; how he gets there, while it might be significant, with the right intentions, is ultimately insignificant.

(While not precisely the words of the Rama, the basic idea is adapted from Toras HaOlah II:24.)