One doesn’t only fulfill mitzvos with the heels of his feet; they can even be done with one’s shoes. One can get a lot of reward when he cleans and polishes his shoes for Shabbos.
Sefer Razin D’Ohraysa quotes a ‘Medrash Pliah’ that states: ‘Yisroel does not know the reward they will receive for cleaning their shoes on erev Shabbos. This is as stated (Shir Hashirim 7:2): ‘How beautiful are your footsteps in shoes.’ This is also as is stated (Yeshaya 22:12): ‘And Hashem called on that day, for weeping, and for lamenting and for baldness, and for girding with sackcloth.’’ What is the connection between these two pesukim?
The Apta Rov zy’a answers with a moshol of a very wealthy man whose fortune changed and he suddenly lost all his money. He became so poor that he was forced to travel from city to city and go around collecting from door to door. While on his journeys, he once came across a bunch of nice stones, and he filled up his bag with them. He continued on his way but since his bag was now very heavy, it was hard for him to walk. Therefore, as he went along the road, he kept throwing away one stone at a time.
When he reached a village, he was provided with a place to sleep at the home of a poor melamed. He was very hungry from his travels, and he began searching through his bag for a few coins to buy something to eat, but he found none. The only thing he pulled out of his bag was his last remaining stone. The melamed noticed the nice stone in his hand and made a suggestion. ‘That looks like it might be worth something,’ he said. ‘I advise you to take it to our local jewel dealer to have it evaluated. What do you have to lose?’
The man didn’t believe that the stone was worth anything and he didn’t want to waste time going to the gem dealer, but the melamed convinced him and went along with him to the dealer. The jewel expert took one look at the stone and immediately said that he would pay 1,000 rubles for it. The poor man was in shock. The dealer thought he was silent because the offer was too low, so he raised his price. When the pauper heard this, he fell on the ground and began ripping out his hair. He cried, ‘Woe is to me! I had a whole bunch of those stones and I threw them away!’
The nimshol is that when a person ascends to the World of Truth with only a few small mitzvos to his name, and he sees how much he is rewarded for them, he will be overcome with grief. He will realize that he had the chance to do so many more mitzvos, but he threw them away! Thus, the Medrash is saying that when one sees how beautiful even a small mitzvah like polishing his shoes in honor of Shabbos is, he will be overcome with weeping and lamenting.
In this vein, the Apta Rov zy’a explains the Medrash that says: ‘Eikev tishma’un. This is as is stated (Tehillim 126:6): ‘Haloch yeilech u’bacha. (He will walk along while weeping.)’’ This means that when goes away from this world, he will weep for not grabbing as many small mitzvos – the kind that a person ‘tramples with his heel’, such as polishing his shoes for Shabbos or answering amein to brachos - as he easily could have.
