Q&A: The Prohibition of Wearing Shoes
The Prohibition of Wearing Shoes
Question
Wearing shoes—how do you think this prohibition should be understood in our time?
Going around in Nike Airs or the like doesn’t seem right to me… especially when I compare it to the prohibitions of washing and anointing.
Answer
I don’t know what Nike Air is. I assume these are good-quality shoes that are not made of leather.
What was included in the original prohibition is leather sandals. Anything beyond that can be prohibited only if it falls under the parameters of the existing prohibitions. One has to discuss what the basis of the prohibition on wearing good sandals is. If its purpose is to cause discomfort (so that one does not cushion the foot while walking), then that is the determining criterion, not how fancy the sandal is or what brand it is. But if it is meant to express mourning, then it really would be proper not to wear brand-name sandals even if they are not made of leather. We are dealing with the five afflictions, which are also prohibited on Yom Kippur, so it is not likely that this is meant to express mourning, but rather apparently to prevent pleasure. If so, it seems there is no issue with brands, but there is an issue with padded sandals.
In practice I am not sure, because this still involves interpretation in the sense of reasoning about the rationale of the verse. (Of course this is a rabbinic prohibition, but its source in Yom Kippur may be Torah-level, at least according to some opinions.)
Discussion on Answer
That is what I answered. There is indeed room to be stringent, but I am not sure it is a full-fledged halakhic obligation.
What would the stringency mean—going barefoot?
That’s how it seems to me… and that is how I act at home.
Does this apply in the public domain as well?
(In weather this hot, on asphalt, it’s unpleasant.)
It seems to me we have pushed the prohibition of wearing shoes to the side.
(It bothers me because I am exempt from eating and drinking due to being ill.)
Going barefoot is the most absolutely strict, of course. But outside that is not reasonable. You can wear slippers or Crocs or something like that.
Nike Air are extremely comfortable athletic shoes.
The question is in the direction of stringency.
Wasn’t leather footwear prohibited… because those were the shoes or sandals that were durable, and maybe the only ones?
Today shoes are also made, and perhaps mainly made, from synthetic materials, and they are very comfortable.
Not for nothing did you want to compare it to the prohibition of washing.
Yom Kippur, or by its original name, the Day of Affliction of the Soul (“soul” here meaning throat, similar to the expression “the waters have reached the soul”)—
in defining the day, it is about affliction,
which is not expressed by non-leather shoes, which are usually much more comfortable than leather shoes.