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And He said, “Do
not draw near here. Take your shoes off your feet, because the place upon
which you stand is holy soil.” (Shemos 3:5)
is holy soil: The
place – Rashi
Why is Moshe
instructed to take off his shoes? How is this place where the Torah is to
be given already holy? Nothing has happened there yet? What is the
business of removing shoes?
More than 30 years ago, while running a program for prisoners, I brought
a colleague of mine who travels widely as a guest speaker. Because the
prisoners crave to know what’s going on “out there” and they live
vicariously through the adventures of others, they nudged the Rabbi with
desperation to tell them where he had been recently. He answered glibly,
“I was just in the world’s largest prison and there I confronted the
most- fierce warden of them all!” Some started to guess which place and
which person he was referring to.
After they got
quiet, he told them, “The largest prison in the world is the whole
world!” I felt an awkward silence in the room and I glanced up sideways
signaling that he ought not to continue peddling these soft parables or
this was going to be a long night or a short night. As I expected, they
chorused “All of us would love to go to that prison! Let us go out
there!” The second answer shed light on the first and his words became
poignantly clear. “Who’s that fierce warden? Myself!” He explained “This
guard keeps you from going a few feet to your left and right! This one
stops you from getting beyond that point! I have my limitations too. If I
travel north, I cannot go south. Of course, my limitations are far more
expansive than yours on a horizontal plane, but who keeps us from going
up, from climbing vertically, transcending the confines of this place and
reaching the fullness of our real potential, even here in prison!? Nobody
stops us but ourselves!”
I know it was 30
years ago, because my wife gave birth a week later, on Shabbos Tisha B’Av
to a baby boy who turned 30 this past Tisha B’Av. Thirty seconds into the
world, I held him for the first time. Maybe it was the footprint
reminding me of the finger printing when entering prison but the first
unrehearsed words that escaped my mouth at that time were, “Welcome to
the prison!”
My wife looked up
at me with bewilderment. I owed her an explanation but I needed to
explain it to myself first. It dawned on me that here, this lofty soul, a
breath from The Almighty Himself, bigger and brighter than anything in
this universe, aware of the whole Torah on some sublime level has just
been crushed into this tiny body, sans teeth and sans vocabulary. He
thinks he wants soda and pizza but deep-deep down he wants much-much
more. We pray for the wisdom of the warden.
After that visit to
the prison, we launched a new orientation program for anyone entering the
prison system. We would ask him, “Where do you live?” The fellow would
answer, “Green Haven!” The question would persist, “Where do you live?”
The answer would expand to “New York”. Again, the question and then,
“America” and next the “world?”! Very nice but where are you??? The
answer we repeated till it was real: “We are in front of HASHEM!” If
that’s your mind-set then you are not in prison! Sure, your feet are here
in this shoe but that’s not where you need to be a whole day! The Baal
Shem Tov said, “Wherever a person’s thoughts are, that is where he is
entirely!”
The Talmud has a
debate about how Adam – Man was created. From which lot of dust did
HASHEM shape that first man? One opinion is that he was made entirely
from dust at the location of the Holy of Holies while the other approach
is that only his head was made from that earth and the rest was collected
from all over the world.
This creates two
types of human movements, two types of people. Some feel a compelling
need to travel the world horizontally while others come to a realization
that their ambition is to climb vertically, endlessly, from where they
are, as depicted in the imagery of Yaakov Avinu’s ladder.
On a practical
level, removing one’s shoes is a demonstration of a commitment to being
where you’re at. On a deeper level, a “NAAL” – literally a shoe means a
lock as well. Stepping out of the prison of this body, this tiny lock
that clothes and holds this lowest part of our being opens one up to the
possibility of living in front of HASHEM. That transforms this place,
wherever we are so aware into a holy place.
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