When a person performs a mitzva, he thereby elevates the essential nature of each physical element and act – such as his eating, drinking, and other mundane activities – utilized in the execution of
this mitzva.
Take, for example, the act of giving some coins to charity.
The effects of this seemingly simple action are far-reaching and power-
ful.
Through this act, the giver effectuates not merely an elevation of the divine life force contained both within those coins and that particular act of giving.
But also elevated is the aggregate life force of all people and objects involved in the process leading to these particular coins being given as charity.
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz