Sermon Outline 12.27.08 - Discarded Shoes in Islam and Judaism

1. By now, many of us familiar with the story of Muntadhar al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist with Egypt-based al-Baghdadia television network
• Mon Dec 15 Baghdad news conf about security pact w/Iraqis
• Al-Zaidi – “This is a farewell ... you dog!”
• He has since become a heroic figures to many Muslims
• Online game: Hit Pres Bush w/a shoe
• Al-Zaidi drew international attention in November 2007 when he was kidnapped while on his way to work in central Baghdad. He was released three days later.

2. In Islam, shoe is a symbol of dishonor
• Was it just the only weapon Al-Zaidi had?
• Hurling shoes at someone, or sitting so that the bottom of a shoe faces another person, is considered an insult among Muslims.
• Shoes ritually unclean, taken off before prayer.\
• It's considered rude in Arabian Gulf nations to sit with a leg lifted or folded over one knee, lest one expose others to the soles of his or her shoes.
• Jamal Elias, a University of Pennsylvania religious studies professor who specializes in Islam: A hagiography of a Sufi saint published around 1600 claimed that the saint showed his spiritual superiority to a levitating person by making his own shoes levitate even higher and whacking the levitator's head with them.

3. So I ask the necessary question: What does Judaism say?
• Three major uses of casting shoes in the Tanach

4. Most famous: Levirite Marriage
• Deut 25: Woman w/o male heirs – her husband dies. Deceased husband’s brother obligated to provide male heir.
If he refuses this obligation:
The 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!
• The questioned status is transferred from female to male and she may marry again. As for the brother, “he shall go in Israel by the name of "the family of the unsandaled one."
• Famous cases: Tamar (last week’s parsha), Ruth (Boaz negotiates)
• The cast out shoe + spitting in face = insult. Publicly, the man is shamed for not providing his sister in law an heir by which the estate will be passed down.
• But this is a narrow case of insult, for specific relationship. One which Al-Zaidi and Bush do not share.

5. Second case: Ritual impurity
• Like in Muslim tradition, Jews historically remove shoes in holy place.
• We keep shoes on in synagogue but Kohanim deliver blessing w/o shoes. Highlight of purity
• Famously, Moses and Joshua both told to remove shoes by God as they are standing on holy ground
• Prophets are either asked to remove shoes when receiving call (Isaiah) or cite Israel’s shoes as a sign of God’s protection (Amos, Ezekiel)
• Here, shoes are barriers to holiness

6. Third case: The Psalmist: Casting shoe in face of insulted one
• Only in the case of the psalmist do we find the true equivalent of the Islamic tradition
• Same line repeated in both psalms 60 and 108:

Moab is my wash basin; upon Edom do I cast my shoe; Philistia, cry aloud because of me!

• God is insulting Israel’s adversaries. Moab (current day Jordan) hold the dirty water after Israel purifies itself. Edom (current southern Jordan / Northern Arabia) receives Israel’s discarded shoe.
• Both enemies receive the waste products of Israel’s spiritual ascent, the people’s communal purification. The recipient is portrayed as defiled, lowly and pitiful.

7. Why go through all of this?
• Once again, our tradition includes similar ideas to that of the Quran.
• The difference is what we choose to highlight.
• Before we reach for moral platitudes, consider: What is worse?
o Throwing a shoe at the President
o Knowlingly stealing billions of dollars from Jewish and other justice based organizations, leaving thousands of orphans, children and destitute in your wake?
o Or maybe its best said that if anyone deserves a good shoe in the face, its Bernie Madoff.