From head to toe TB Ketubot 96

As King Louis XVI Mel Brook would say after an inappropriate act “It’s good to be the king” in the movie History of the World part one. After studying TB Ketubot 96 you could say “It’s good to be a rabbi back in Talmudic days.

“Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: All tasks that a Canaanite slave performs for his master, a student performs for his teacher, except for untying his shoe, a demeaning act that was typically performed by slaves and would not be appropriate for a student to do.

“Rava said: We said this only if the teacher and the student are in a place where people are not familiar with the student and he could be mistaken for a slave. However, in a place where people are familiar with the student, we have no problem with it as everyone knows that he is not a slave. Rav Ashi said: And in a place where people are not familiar with the student, we said this halakha only if he is not donning phylacteries, but if he is donning phylacteries, we have no problem with it. A slave does not don phylacteries, and since this student is donning phylacteries, even if he unties his teacher’s shoes he will not be mistaken for a slave.

“Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba said that Rabbi Yoḥanan said: Anyone who prevents his student from serving him, it is as if he withheld from him kindness, as it is stated: “To him that is ready to faint [lamas], from his friend kindness is due” (Job 6:14). Rabbi Yoḥanan interprets this to mean that one who prevents [memis] another from performing acts on his behalf, prevents him from performing the mitzva of kindness. Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak says: He even removes from the student the fear of Heaven, as it is stated in the continuation of the verse: “Even to one who forsakes the fear of the Almighty.”” (Sefria.org translation)

There are many places in the Bible and in the Talmud where the shoe is considered something that is singularly debasing; consequently one does not enter into a holy space with shoes on. For example, Moses is commanded to take off his shoes before approaching the burning bush. “And [God] said, “Do not come closer! Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground!”” (Exodus 3:5) Being hit by a shoe or throwing a shoe at another person is considered a great insult. The psalmist wrote: “Moab would be my washbasin; on Edom I would cast my shoe; acclaim me, O Philistia!” (Psalm 60:10) Throwing a shoe is still an insult in the Middle East today. In December 2018 Muntadhar al-Zaidi, then a 28-year-old journalist working for the Egypt-based television station Al-Baghdadia, stood up and threw both shoes at Pres. George W Bush. When a brother refuses to do yibum, levirate marriage, with his deceased brother’s widow “…shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, pull the sandal off his foot, spit in his face, and make this declaration: Thus shall be done to the man who will not build up his brother’s house! And he shall go in Israel by the name of “the family of the unsandaled one.” (Deuteronomy 25:10) By the context we can tell that “the unsandaled one” is a derogatory term.

On the other hand tefilin is a positive commandment which the slave is exempt from observing. Putting on tefilin is associated with great honor. Consequently, the sages understood the word ornaments “פְּאֵֽרְךָ֙ ” in Ezekiel 24: 17 to refer to the tefilin. The saddest day in the Jewish calendar is Tisha B’Av because both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed. It is a day of mourning. Since the tefilin are termed פְּאֵר or ornaments and the book of Lamentations says: “Lord has cast down תִּפְאֶ֖רֶת יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל” (2:1) which was interpreted as referring to the tefilin, people do not don tefilin for the morning service.