"On Tisha B'Av, We Walk Only with Socks" - The Words of the Gaon and Tzaddik, Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a
The holy words of our teacher, the Gaon and Tzaddik, Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a from the year 5780 (2020), discussing the greatness of walking only with socks on Tisha B'Av (the fast day mourning the Temple) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement)
"First of all, we need to draw the lights down to the heels, as it says, 'And it shall come to pass, because (ekev - also means heel) you listen' (Deuteronomy 7:12). We must draw the lights into the heels—'and it shall be the heel'—and therefore we walk barefoot on Yom Kippur so that the lights will reach all the way to the heels."
"The main thing is that a person truly walks barefoot, only with socks, and then he feels every bump, every stone, every small piece of glass, and every thorn. This is what purifies his heels—'and it shall be the heel you listen'—because the point is to purify the heels."
"If a person walks on Tisha B'Av without shoes, walking literally on thorns and thistles, then he sweetens all the decrees of all the generations."
"And when the Jewish people walked barefoot—'And before your feet stumble upon the mountains of twilight' (Jeremiah 13:16)—all that the Jewish people walked barefoot for kilometers, days and nights, they walked barefoot in Auschwitz, Treblinka, and throughout the Holocaust. In all those places, they walked barefoot for days and nights; for half a year, they walked barefoot."
"And when a person walks completely barefoot on both Tisha B'Av and Yom Kippur, he sweetens all the judgments for himself, for his children, and for his children's children until the end of all generations—he is able to sweeten them."
"Because the whole matter is to bring the Or Ein Sof (Infinite Light) into the heels, so that the light will shine even in the heels."
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