If you will obey. (Devarim 7:12)
If you will obey the light mitzvos that people tread under their heels. (Rashi)
It is natural not to pay proper attention to the light mitzvos and the little minhagim. But in truth, these are the ones that really show a person’s awareness of and love for Hashem. I will present here an example of a light mitzvah that people “tread under their heels.” Please forgive the pun: it is the way we put on our shoes.
The Shulchan Aruch tells us as follows, in the halachos of getting dressed:
One should put on the right shoe first, and not tie it, and then put on the left shoe, and tie it, and then go back and tie the right shoe. When one takes the shoes off, the left one should be taken off first.
If a person was trained to do this when he was a child, or he trained himself to do it, it becomes second nature. But it is hard for someone who is not used to this because people tie their shoes automatically without thinking about what they are doing.
Let’s say someone would be shown how every time he ties his shoes not as specified by the Torah, a Jewish child somewhere in the world gets injured at that very moment. There is no question about it; he would not need to be told a second time to put his shoes on right. However, people tend to think to themselves, even after learning this halachah, that it’s not such a serious matter. It’s not like breaking Shabbos or eating pork. It’s just a little thing.
We need to know that this is a mistake. There is a factor here that is more serious than the most serious aveiros, and it is disregard for the Torah and He Who gave the Torah. As the saying goes, “Don’t look at the greatness of the mitzvah, but at the greatness of He Who commanded it.” If Hakadosh Baruch Hu commanded us to do it, it must be an immensely great and profound matter.
And if we look into the practice that we think is so small and insignificant, the chances are we will see how great and important it really is.
In the morning we recite the blessing of שעשה לי כל צרכי. In this blessing we thank Hashem for granting us shoes to wear. What is so special about shoes that justifies a special berachah over them?
Imagine someone travelling by bus to an important and fateful meeting. On the way, he slips his feet out of his shoes to make himself more comfortable. A mean prankster sitting behind him quietly drags one shoe away and throws it out the window. Sometime later, the traveler arrives at his bus stop, and looks around furiously for his shoe. The driver is pressuring him to hurry. The passengers all around are helping to search for the shoe. In the end, he gets off the bus without a shoe.
You can already imagine the end of the story: everything he went through until he got back home, all the pain and anguish, all the embarrassment...
So is a shoe really so small and insignificant after all?
If Hashem gives us shoes, there is so much chesed in it. And what does He expect from us? To remember the mitzvah of tefillin when we are putting our shoes on. Just as we tie the tefillin on our left, so we tie the left shoe first. The deeper significance goes like this: just as we tie and declare the rulership of Hashem’s Oneness onto our hearts and minds by means of tefillin, so we need to tie the remembrance of Hashem onto all our acts and ways.
Know Hashem in all your ways.
Behavior such as this rectifies us from head to foot, so to speak, and ties us tightly to Hashem and His kedushah.
