Right, Left, Left, Right
Vaera, 5772
Shmuel Herzfeld

Every morning after services we study a law from the Shulchan Aruch. This past week we studied a law which taught the following:
When one puts on their shoe in the morning, they should first put on the right shoe and then the left shoe. But when it comes to tie the shoe, one should first tie the left shoe and then the right shoe. And when one is removing the shoe, one should first remove the left and only then the right shoe.
The great commentary on the Shulchan Aruch, the Mishnah Beruruah, explains the reason for these laws. Says the Mishnah Berurah, the reason why we put the right shoe on first is because in the Torah, in all matters of importance, we find that the right comes before the left. And the reason why we tie the left shoe first is because when we put on tefillin we tie the tefillin on our left hand. And the reason why we remove the left shoe first is because we want to give the right foot more honor by not making it barefoot first.
Some of you might think that this set of laws is silly and is not essential to being a good Jew. Some of you might suggest that instead of teaching about these laws I should focus on something of greater value and relevance to the lives of the people in our shul.
I disagree. These laws are very significant and are essential to our spiritual well being. We want and need these laws in order to have a meaningful relationship with Hashem.
Before I explain in greater depth what I mean, let us first address a question from this week’s parashah.
The parashah tells the story of the first seven plagues that are brought upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians. We know from the outset that Hashem promises to harden the heart of Pharaoh and it is for this reason that Pharaoh doesn’t let the Israelites leave Egypt after each plague.
This is true. The reason why Pharaoh ignores the plagues, and keeps the Israelites in Egypt is because his heart is hard.
But there is something more going on here as well.
On three occasions in the parashah—after the plagues of frogs, animals, and hail (8:4; 8:24; and 9:27) Pharaoh begs Moshe to stop the plague and in that moment—in the moment of the plagues inflicting their hardships upon him--Pharaoh promises to release the Israelites from their bondage as soon as the plague stops. As Pharaoh says to Moshe: “Chatati ha-paam, Hashem hatzadik, vaani ve-ami hareshaim. Pharaoh sent, and called for Moshe and Aharon, and he said to them, "This time I have sinned. Hashem is the righteous One and I and my people are the sinners. Pray to Hashem. There has been enough of God's thunder and hail. I will send you out without further delay" (9:27-28).
And on each occasion, after God removes the plague, Pharaoh reneges on his promise and continues their servitude.
Pharaoh is almost like a cartoon character; a buffoon. He keeps sinning in the exact same way. How does he not realize that the plagues will return? Does he think he can outsmart God? Who is he kidding with his false promises?
That is what Pharaoh is by definition. At the moment when he feels the intensity of the plague he is inspired and recognizes the power of Hashem. Under the fire of the plague he vows to change his ways and submit himself to Hashem. But then as soon as the moment passes he forgets about Hashem and returns to his former ways. Pharaoh by definition is a person who recognizes God in a moment of crisis and then as soon as the crisis passes he forgets about God.
The Torah tells us that Pharaoh’s heart was hard. I used to imagine this to mean that Pharaoh was a mean and stubborn man who could not be softened up. But now I think the hard heart means something else. It means that his heart was not open to the spiritual possibilities of the inspirational moment he had just experienced.
But how much different are we than Pharaoh? How many of us are also not open to a spiritual transformation? How many of us call out to God when we are in a crisis; we promise to change our ways, and then as soon as the crisis passes, our mood and moments of inspiration pass as well; and we return to where we were before the crisis?
Rav Aharon Lopiansky told me a story about Rav Mordechai Gifter that encapsulates this idea.
Rav Gifter was born in 1915 in Portsmouth Virginia. He later became Rosh Yeshiva of Telz Yeshiva in Cleveland, and one of the foremost Roshei Yeshiva of his generation.
Most Roshei Yeshiva of his time were not born in Portsmouth, Virginia. Most were born in Europe. Rav Gifter’s background was unique. After being born in Virginia he moved to Baltimore and attended public school and received his Jewish education in an after-school synagogue program. In 1932, as a young man, he decided to take a boat to Lithuania to study in the famous Yeshivas of Lithuania. On the boat ride he had a formative experience that forever impacted him.
He was on the boat and he saw that the passengers were partying—drinking excessively, gambling, and living the carefree party life. Suddenly a storm came along and the boat was in danger. The people put away their vices and began to pray fervently. Then the storm passed and immediately they took out their vices again, forgot about the storm and their moments of crisis, and resumed their partying ways.
That is the way of Pharaoh and we are all guilty of acting like Pharaoh. The second the crisis passes we forget about the crisis and what the crisis inspired us to feel.
We the Jewish people are commanded to be the contrast to those people on the boat—they are the Pharaoh’s of the world. They might not have been wicked like Pharaoh was; but they were equivalent to Pharaoh in that they ignored the spiritual possibilities of the inspirational moments in their life. As soon as the intensity of the moment passed they return to the Pharaohesque quality of their lives.
The Rosh Yeshiva of Mir Yeshiva, Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz taught this very idea through a teaching on this week’s parashah.
The pasuk states, “Vayedaber Hashem el moshe ve-el aharon vayetzavem el benei yisrael, Hashem spoke to Moshe and Aharon, commanding them regarding the Israelites” (6:13).
The Torah doesn’t tell us exactly what they were commanded at that time. It just says that they were commanded.
So the Jerusalem Talmud teaches (Rosh Hashanah 3:5) that the Israelites were commanded about the need to send away their own slaves.
Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz asks why they were commanded about this mitzvah then. After all, it was not relevant to them at that time. They were slaves then and didn’t have slaves of their own. So why command them while they are still in Egypt about their obligation to send away their own slaves?
He thus explains that generally speaking a person who had a slave would have had great difficulty in giving up on something that he thinks is his own. It is only if a person is sensitive to the hardships of a slave that he would understand how cruel it is to own a slave. Therefore, Hashem wanted the Israelites to learn about this law of freeing slaves at the moment where they themselves understood the harsh nature of servitude so that they could retain this sensitivity and understanding behind this mitzvah.
The Talmud (tractate Avodah Zarah 17a) tells the story about a man named R. Elazar ben Dordaya. He was considered to be so wicked that there was not one illicit activity that he had not engaged in. And yet, at the moment he comprehended the full extent of his wickedness he put his head between his knees and cried. The Talmud says that his cry was so sincere that his soul went straight to heaven. Upon seeing this the great sage Rabbi [Judah Ha-Nasi] wept and said: “Some acquire eternal life over many years, and some in one moment—be-sha-ah achat!”
Explains Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz: There are thousands and millions of people who have this one moment in their life—or in fact, many ‘one moments’-- where they intensely feel the presence of God. But it is truly one in a million when a person feels that one moment and acquires eternal life by recognizing the power of that moment and actually changing their life as a result.
So many of us have those moments and then immediately we forget about that special moment. We do this as individuals and as a community as well.
This week I read an article that was written in 2007 by one of my mentors, Rabbi Saul Berman. (See Martin Luther King and the Exodus Narrative, The Jewish Press, 1/17/2007.) Rabbi Berman wrote about how he had traveled with four other rabbis to Selma, Alabama in 1965, to help Dr. King with his voter registration drive.
It was Purim night and Rabbi Berman and the other rabbis were arrested and put in a prison in Selma.
That night the leadership of the Jewish community of Selma came to visit the rabbis in the prison. They told them we can get you out of prison immediately but you have to pack up and leave Selma at once. They said the presence of Jewish agitators and rabbis was making life very difficult for the local Jewish community of Selma.
This is how Rabbi Berman responded to that Jewish delegation:
“We reminded them that it was only twenty years after the Holocaust and that we as Jews had condemned the European non-Jewish population whose silence in the face of Nazi persecution had made the extermination of six million Jews possible. Were we then as a people to hypocritically enact that same silence in the face of injustice toward others?”

In essence Rabbi Berman was saying we Jewish people of the 20th century had our “shaah achat”; we had our moment, and it needs to affect us forever.
It is true both on a communal level and on an individual level. It is human nature to forget so quickly an intense, seemingly transformative situation.
For most of us the transformative situations won’t really transform. They will be soon forgotten and lost amongst our overflowing memories.
So what do we do? Here is where we have to allow the power of Halakhah to guide us in our lives.
We stay connected to Hashem through little acts throughout the day that remind us that we have a mission and a purpose in our life.
The Halakhah is a gift from Hashem to help us stay connected. At first glance the minutiae of halakhot might seem insignificant. But when understood and followed carefully the impact of halakhah helps us connect to Hashem in a more impactful manner than most “transformative” experiences.
This is why it is important to put our shoes on the way we do. When we put on the shoes the right way we are affirming that we are putting on our shoes with a sense of mission and purpose and that every step we take throughout the day is a purposeful and meaningful step.
Putting on a shoe is not just about putting on a shoe. It is about so much more.
This week I had the great honor of visiting Bethesda Naval Hospital. I saw many people there who aren’t able to put on shoes. They have no feet and barely any legs. I saw one young man—a veteran in his 20’s—who had two prosthetic legs. At the bottom of his legs are his shoes. I guarantee you when he puts on his shoes, he doesn’t do it without thinking. He knows what is at stake. When he puts on his shoes it is part of his mission in life and he doesn’t take it for granted.
When we put our shoes the right way in the morning, we are reminded that we also are committing ourselves to a mission and a purpose.
The way we put on our shoes matters because it is a daily reminder that the routine steps we take are even more important to our spiritual well being than the witnessing of a great miracle.
This is a lesson that Pharaoh never understood. And if want to come close to Hashem it is a lesson that we must embrace.