“Wear No shoes” by Moshe Kaplan

In this week’s Parsha, we see the dramatic story of Yosef being sold into slavery.  This came to pass because Yosef shared his dreams with his brothers.  He told them of how they would all end up bowing down to him and how he would be the thing that they would all revolve around.  His dreams only added to the mounting tension between Yosef and his brothers.  In order to put Yosef in his place, his ten brothers stripped him the beautiful coat his father had given to him and threw him into a pit.  As they sat around afterward, they saw a caravan passing by and sold their brother for twenty silver pieces.  With this money, we learn that the brothers bought pairs of shoes.  This seems to come across as strange.  Why would the brothers buy shoes with the money that they received from selling Yosef?  It is first important to look at some of the other instances in the torah where it mentions shoes.  When Moshe Rabeinu was standing before the burning bush, God told him to remove his shoes because he was standing in a holy place.  Shoes are also mentioned when God is commanding the Jews to prepare to leave Egypt and tells them to put on their shoes.  Shoes can be seen as a separation between a person and God.  When a person wears shoes they are essentially separating themselves from the ground.  Since nature is a mask that God wears in this world, the ground can be seen as God.  When God told Moshe to remove his shoes before the burning bush, he was telling him that he wanted a physical connection.  The place was holy and Moshe was worthy enough to tap into that holiness.  When the Jews were about to leave Egypt, they were on the lowest level of purity that a person can get to.  They were not yet ready to experience the holiness in the desert so they were commanded to wear shoes.  When the brothers sold Yosef, they realized that they were no longer worthy enough to go barefooted.  They needed to separate themselves from god’s holiness because they had dropped from such a high place to a low place.  It is important for us to realize that everything is holy, even the ground.  We need to strive to be on a level that will allow us to walk around with no shoes on.