Rabbi Yitzchak Zilberstein shlita"h (V'haarev Nah, vol. 3, p. 450) addresses an interesting sensitive question regarding a group of about 10 men who study Talmud together. When it comes to a new mesechta - tractate, they rotate as to who purchases the gemaras for the group. With the great variety of gemaras available, including those with more features, the more affluent members purchased more costly texts, and the more economically strapped purchased more basic texts. The question was: should the magid shiur, instructor of the group, make a policy that only one type of gemara should be bought, to protect the dignity of the poorer members?
The mishna (Bikurim 3:8) teaches that poor farmers gave the kohein both their bikurim fruits and the simple myrtle baskets in which they brought the bikurim, while the affluent farmers took back their baskets of gold and silver. Rabbi Zilberstein, discussing the above issue of gemara purchases, cites the following question of the Tosfos Yom Tov on this mishna: just as the mishna (Taanis 26b) teaches that girls borrowed dresses on Tu B'av and Yom Kippur in order to not embarrass the poor girls, why not legislate here that everyone should bring Bikurim in simple baskets? Tosfos Yom Tov answers that the honor of the Beis Hamikdash and allowing the wealthy farmers to enrich their mitzvah and beautify it, thus fulfilling ze Keili v'anveihu, overrode the concern of sensitivity to the poor.
Rabbi Zilberstein brings an exciting Malbim (26:4) who teaches that there is a significant difference between the baskets of the rich and the poor. The poor man, he postulates, wove the basket out of myrtle leaves specifically for this purpose. Since it is a labor of love, reflecting his personal mesiras nefesh for the mitzvah, the basket thus becomes an integral part of the mitzvah. It is not simply a means to an end, enabling the farmer to give the fruit to the kohein, but rather it assumes the status of the mitzvah itself; the poor man who toiled and gave of himself in making the basket elevates the basket to become part and parcel of the mitzvah. It is for this reason that we honor the poor and the kohein keeps the basket in recognition of his noble efforts.
I believe this insight of the Malbim is extremely significant and poignant. The Torah is teaching that when one invests in something, it becomes an integral part of oneself. The Talmud (Bava Metzia 38a) teaches that a person prefers a kav of his own produce more than nine kavs of his fellow's produce which could be purchased with the proceeds from a timely sale of his produce. Rashi explains this is the case because that which one toils to produce is most precious to him. What is true in the physical and materialistic realm is equally true in the spiritual realm. Avos D'rabi Nason (3:6) teaches that one mitzvah observed with tza'ar - difficulties and challenge - is more dear to Hashem than one hundred performed with ease.
Dovid Hamelech in his opening chapter of Tehilim praises the one "whose desire is in the Torah of Hashem, and in His Torah he meditates day and night" (1:2). At first it is called the Torah of Hashem, but once an individual has studied it and mastered it, it is called "his Torah", namely that of the scholar (Kiddushin 32b.)
Moreover, the Torah in the beginning of the Vayikra speaks of the korban olah which begins with the bringing of an animal, then the bringing of a bird, and finally the bringing of a meal offering. Interestingly, it is just regarding this latter offering that the Torah describes the donor as nefesh ("if a soul will bring a meal offering" Vayikra 2:1.) Rashi cites from the Talmud (Menachos 104b) that since most often it is a poor man that brings a meal offering as his korban olah, Hashem looks upon this act as if he offered his soul.
The lesson of the Malbim is most appropriate as we prepare for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Make mitzvos yours. One way, suggests the Chazon Ish (Emunah U'bitchon Chap. 3,5-10is to study the mitzvos. The more one understands what appears to be the technical aspects of the mitzvos and the philosophical teachings of the mitzvos, the more it becomes part of you. Why do we blow thirty sounds, the tekios d'm'yushov, before the Mussaf prayer on Rosh Hashana? Why do we blow thirty sounds during the shemoneh esrei? Why forty at the end of the mussaf? What is Biblical and what is Rabbinic? Studying the above enables one to make the mitzvah theirs.
Finally, as the basket is upgraded and is reckoned as an integral part of the mitzvah, may we who perform and are about to approach a season of many mitzvos, become basket-like, namely, not just to do good, but to be good.