Shabbat Shalom!
At the beginning of this week’s parasha, Ki Tavo, Moshe tells B’nei Yisrael about the fruit offering. He also relays to them the curses that will come upon them if they don’t follow Hashem, and the blessings they will receive if they do.
According to the text we should bring the first fruit of the land as bikkurim. ‘You shall take some of every first fruit of the soil, which you harvest from the land that the LORD your God is giving you, put it in a basket and go to the place where the LORD your God will choose to establish His name (Deuteronomy 26:2).’ Here it says that you should take the fruit of the land, do we also bring from the fruit of the tree or vine as well?
Rashi states “And not from all firsts, for not all fruits are obligated in the mitzvah of bikkurim only from the seven species.” According to Rashi, we don’t bring just any fruit of the ground, we bring the seven species.
Ramban tells us ‘You can bring only the best grain of wheat but you must put it in a nice container and designate it for Bikkurim’. Ramban is saying that the quantity doesn't matter as much as the designation of the object.
From this, we can learn that designating something for a mitzvah is important. For instance, if you wear a suit to work all week, you can designate that you will only wear white shirts on Shabbos. You could put money in a jar, to designate it for tzedakah. In conclusion, it isn’t just the Mitzvah itself that is important, the preparation is also important. So when you go home, find something to designate for your favorite mitzvah.
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