Rosh Hashana is coming, and I wanted to talk a little about shoes. OK…a lot about shoes.
Last week, in response to a post submitted by Heshy, a discussion developed regarding the appropriate manner to put one’s shoes on according to Jewish law. Rather than the subject being discussed in a thoughtful fashion, however, numerous falsehoods were introduced as true premises, and as a result, logically unsound arguments ensued.
I thought it prudent, therefore, to review some true premises relating to what Judaism has to say about dressing oneself — not only to reverse the sense of ridicule already dealt but also to promote a true sense of appreciation for the exquisiteness of Judaism, despite the perception that it is merely self-indulgently excessively nit-picky. (For a nearly comprehensive review of this topic, see R’ Mordechai Becher’s Why Is Judaism So Nit-picky?)
The Shulchan Aruch (OC 2:4) spells out how one is to put on one’s shoes — the left preceded by the right. The Mishnah Brurah explains that the right is accorded with greater honor for most anything that can be divided into right and left because we can see that it is favored in the Torah; when being annointed for various Temple services, participants would have oil or blood placed on the right sided appendages.
So what does this mean and who cares? Truly, Judaism maintains itself to be utterly correlated with reality — so why does God care which shoe goes on first?
Taking it as a given for the duration of this post that there is a God as He revealed himself to Moses and the Israelites in the Sinai wilderness thousands of years ago, there is a concept put forth by Judaism of two opposing forces. They take the form of various complimentary opposites: light and dark, right and left, good and evil. Why is this — is darkness bad? Darkness is essential and quite often, it is even desirable — such as in a refrigerator on Shabbos if you want to close the door! It’s also nice for sleeping. But religion is very metaphoric — I find it one of the most intellectually stimulating things to be able to express myself with an allegory. Often, I can’t talk to patients about their teeth in terms of teeth because they don’t know what teeth are all about. So I talk about teeth in terms of marriage, sports, Judaism, Harry Potter and anything else I can think of to make my patients smile and appreciate what I’m trying to tell them about their mouth. So Judaism makes metaphors for everything and out of everything, and with the proper insight, one can immediately grasp the point of the allegory that is being used to so mystically elaborate on something that may otherwise remain so abstract that it is hardly comprehensible.
But there are those — and it is quite unfortunate that the “those” I speak of hold the frightful majority — who will mock the metaphor. They mock it because it’s silly, they mock it because it’s childish and they mock it because it’s so evident to their elaborately folded cerebral cortex that such a metaphor cannot be reality. God, who existed before the Universe, created the Universe, constructed the galaxies to include such intricate and delicate things as aldosterone converting enzymes and the potential to inhibit them is interested in little me putting my right shoe on first?
And that’s just it — the strawman argument of them all: “These metaphors cannot possibly be reality.” No one said it’s reality; in fact, it’s objectively declared, by virtue of it being a metaphor, that it is meant to represent reality. So simple, yet so overlooked. How could we miss it? Yet countless people laugh at the proverbial Jewish allegory, unable to understand neither the metaphor for its simplicity nor its point devoid of concrete explanation.
If we ascribe terms to God like “Master of the Universe,” it should not surprise us when we say he is the source of all ideas. It was from R’ Becher that I heard the wondrous concept of “davar v’hipucho” — “a thing and it’s opposite.” The word “gamel” means both to provide (as in “gemilas chasadim” [giving kindness]) as well as to cease providing (as in “vayigdal hayeled v’yigamal” [the child grew and was weaned] Gen. 21:8). How can the same word refer to two opposites — it sounds like fodder for Peggy Parish!
So Judaism, in line with its stance of being completely consistent with reality, uses this concept of davar v’hipucho to reveal that what appear to be opposites are really from the same source — Zeus does not advertise good while Hades endorses evil. Our God is all encompassing, and it is from him that everything emanates. Yin yang — yeah, that’s just Asian fusion-style Jewish theology.
So back to the shoes — we are meant to understand that while the source of everything is God, we compartmentalize and even personify personal, communal and global properties to make them easier to deal with. So we have the fight of good vs. evil, even though they really share the same mascot. There’s no shoulder-riding microangels and demons in Judaism — it’s all in our head. But rather than engaging in a psychological version of The Body Politic whenever we’d like to engage our evil inclination, we anthropomorphize it into a “him” (or “her”) so as to better beat it. We then draw as many parallels as we can so as to metaphorize our entire life into a similar struggle of good and evil — check this out if you don’t believe me.
Did God command Moses to instruct the Israelites to kiss the mezuzah, or is kissing it just an exhilarating way of endearing God to oneself on a constant basis? It is obviously the latter, much in the same way that putting on one’s right shoe first represents one’s constant endeavor to do good and be good.
So when I get dressed this Rosh Hashana, and I put my right shoe on first, I expect it to serve as a reminder of how I’m supposed to perceive the world while I’m alive on this planet for the next 70-some-odd Rosh Hashanas — and it’s certainly not to mock the metaphor.
speaking of shoes, someone gave me a nice pair of heels recently 🙂
If it’s meant to be a metaphor, then stop saying crap like “you’ll never get married if you put your shoes on the wrong way.”
First of all – take a chill. There’s no such thing as “You won’t – until”.
It’s more like, “If you want to make things easier, you might want to try to”.
Secondly, all because it’s meant as a metaphor, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have it’s own inherent value as well. Tefillin and Matzah are also “metaphors” in a way. But once they become commandments by G-d, they take on a new meaning.
In fact, if one concentrates with all his might on the text inside the tefillin but does not put them on – he has not fulfilled the Mitzva. As opposed to one who throws them on and rips them off without thinking anything more than “I’m doing a Mitzva and I have no idea what it means”, he has (although not in the most ideal way) fulfilled G-d’s commandment.
I don’t recall ever seeing a source which states that finding your predestined match is dependent on your first fulfilling all the mitzvos perfectly. I got married at a time when I was very far from doing all the mitzvos properly.
What you might be hearing, is that G-d often tries to get our attention through talking to us the only way he can – unless we’re prophets of course.
Sometimes it’s a small difficulty, sometimes a larger one, but what we’re supposed to do in these situations is think about what he might be trying to tell us.
A very safe thing to assume, is that he’s beckoning us to come closer to him. If we weren’t capable of bettering ourselves, or if he did not desire to draw us near – I’m sure he wouldn’t bother us or make things difficult for us. He doesn’t make life hard for people for the heck of it. If he hated us, there are better ways for him to torture us.
So we as Jews believe, that there’s no “better” than the good which G-d describes himself. A good example is when he sums up the whole of the Torah, and says “I have placed before you life and good, and death and evil”.
I think we can all relate to certain mitzvos easily, like tzedaka, and “You shall love the convert”. These are understandable and make us feel good, because we see how they’re good.
Then there are those which are difficult to understand. Like Shatnez, and electricity on Shabbos.
So there is a way to bridge this gap and relate to all Mitzvos with sincerety. It’s called Emunah. We trust that if G-d who cares so much about us, tells us to do something it must be the best thing for us.
I hope I somehow made things a little more clearer for you.
Yes, you did Yankel.
Perhaps to focus more on your comment, though, Puzzled~
The ones who don’t catch the metaphors are labeled by Maimonides as fools, and there are no shortage of Maimonidean fools out there — there’s actually a preponderance of them, and far too many of them gravitate towards chinuch.
My advice to you is seek out a new mentor, a sort of spiritual adviser of sorts. Ever since I picked mine up about 4 years ago, I’ve been able to develop a new comprehensive worldview that not accommodates reality but champions it.
Thoughtful d’var torah. The important corrolary is that if much of ritual observance is metaphorical (as I believe it is) then choosing not to engage in a particular metaphor is NOT sinful.
For example: Choosing to honor God through the metaphor of “names too holy to use” by using the nickname Hashem, adjusting the spelling to G-d, or even H-shem, is all very nice, but NOT using this metaphor to honor God is NOT sinful. Choosing to acknowledge God by choosing to don the right shoe before the left shoe may be a useful metaphor for some, but if you don’t find the metaphor meaningful, it is no sin to put your left shoe on first.
One hopes that every individual finds personally useful metaphors for honoring the Diety. That is probably a usefully metaphorical interpretation of the idea that the Torah has 70 faces.
As I’ve quoted R’ Jonathan Rietti as saying before, the Written Torah is meaningless without the Oral Law, because little to no details are contained within the text and anyone seriously considering putting their life on the line without any real knowledge of how to act within the confines of the boundaries of the ambiguity presented is being intellectually dishonest.
But the Oral Law is also problematic, and not only because it’s September 2010. The Talmud leaves many questions unanswered and many applications of the laws are not played out to a satisfactory level for a comprehensive, rigorous ritual and spiritual allegiance.
So we move onto the great Medieval commentators upon whom the Jewish people relied for centuries — notables like the Ran, Rif, Rashi and the Tosafists. But there are many instances in which they argue and who’s to say who we should follow? If you lived in Spain with the Rif in 1090, you likely followed the community and relied either partially or completely upon his interpretation and decisions. But even someone living in Spain in 2010 would likely not have a direct mesorah from the Rif and so wouldn’t necessarily follow him in the face of later disagreement that trumped his authority.
So then we have the Shulchan Aruch — but even that is hardly without problems. We don’t pasken like the Shulchan Aruch, although we’re pretty close to it. Even with the Rama and the Chafetz Chaim’s Mishnah Brurah, there’s plenty of times that their shitos are ignored or altered and Klal Yisroel has moved away from their decision. That brings us to September 2010 — so what do we do?
So the answer is that you have to have a rebbe. He doesn’t need to have a long beard a payos — mine just has a short beard (and it happens to be red). If I have a question and I look it up in the Shulchan Aruch but it doesn’t seem like the answer I find matches with what I sense is the standard of today’s times, I call my rebbe and ask him what to do. You don’t have to call my rebbe, but you should really call your rebbe. And if you don’t have one, get one, and if you have one but he tells you that one is not fit for marriage prior to submitting a certificate that he or she places his or her right shoe on first, perhaps you should get another rebbe.
But this metaphor for right over left as an overwhelming and thoroughly ingrained concept in Judaism is a wonderful one — why would you denigrate it? If this is accepted in mainstream Torah Orthodoxy and you have no source upon which you can sincerely rely (as opposed to positioning yourself and then seeking a matching p’sak), why do you distance yourself from the masses? It’s not so much the shoe that matters but the perceived insubordination and rebelliousness that one would show to something that can be perceived as so exemplary by anyone who really comprehends its purpose that marks the proverbial “you” who refuses to comply with this overt dictum in the Shulchan Aruch that would be a cause for alarm.
Chazal were our coaches — they demand things that we might sometimes think we don’t need and other things that we certainly don’t want, but they were exceedingly perceptive of human psychology and developed a system of precepts and regulations that were meant to shape our existence into a meaningful one according to God’s will. It’s very hard to tell someone how to think or feel, and correspondingly, you can see that there are very few directives telling us how to think or feel. But telling one how to act in order to bring about a particular sense of passion — that’s very easy, assuming one gets the connection and applies it every time one performs the action. So please don’t complain about the action — that’s what many people do, but they just don’t get it, and Maimonides chastises them for it. Rather, focus your energy on grasping the bigger picture, the metaphorical point of the action. Only this will ultimately permit you to perform the motion with the appropriate emotion.
Well, you know what they say in Islam. :^) When you eat with your right hand, the Shaytan eats with you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6c_E5TMxp0
Thank you Andrew for making my point far better than I did.
Asian fusion-style Judaism? Actually, there’s more truth to that than you even realize. If you haven’t already read the Book of Tao, it’s very short, I would highly recommend it. I don’t know about practical Taoism, but there are those who would not consider the Book of Tao to be mamash avodah zara. I can’t source anyone for that at the moment (I apologize), but you are right that Jews don’t believe in a God/Devil good/evil model, but rather God is more of a Yin-Yang out there. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Elohim is supposed to be the God of Judgement and Yahweh is supposed to be the God of Mercy, right? One is not supposed to look at them as two different entities (as some gnostics or pantheists would), but rather two sides of the coin (I’m getting some vague memories of “The Lonely Man of Faith” here and the Rav’s analysis of the difference between the narratives of the first 2 chapters of Genesis, assuming one rejects modern Biblical criticism).
So yeah, my understanding of how the Jewish God works is not altogether different from Taoism at all. Yin can be seen as “Middat HaRachamim” and Yang as “Middat HaDin”.
Have you been peering into my soul, Ghottistyx? Next week’s devar Torah for the Aseres Y’mei Teshuva is all about middas harachamim vs. middas hadin!
there is not a “book of Tao”
there is however a Tao Te Ching… and its a very nice book ascribed to Lao-tzu a very wise chinses sage. I too endorse reading it if only to see the universality of many ideas.
but for the real reasin of my comment:
This was a great post well written…
Thanx! 🙂