The Daily Strengthening from The Rav, Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a — “In the Future, It Will Be Forbidden to Walk with Shoes”

“Rise, walk through the land—its length and its breadth” (Bereishis 13:17)

“Rabbi Yochanan said: In the future, Yerushalayim will extend until the gates of Damascus” (Shir HaShirim Rabbah)

“And let my soul be like dust to all” (Berachos 17a)

“An altar to Hashem within the land of Egypt” (Yeshayahu 19:19)

Monday, 15 Kislev 5785 — “Suddenly the Entire World Will Receive the Holiness of Eretz Yisrael”

These are his holy words:

Yosef didn’t have shoes. If they had given him shoes, there wouldn’t have been a problem—they sold him for a pair of shoes.

People ask: How could it be that the brothers didn’t have shoes? The work Pelach HaRimon explains (Pelach HaRimon is a sefer that includes the Chassidic discourses of Rabbi Hillel of Paritch. His teachings were recorded—some by himself and some by his students—and were kept in the possession of his family) that Eretz Yisrael is a holy land with the holiness of the Holy of Holies. Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov sanctified the land, as it says: “Rise, walk through the land—its length and its breadth” (Bereishis 13:17).

Rabbi Nosson says: When you walk in the Diaspora, you sanctify the Diaspora; when you walk in the Land, you sanctify the Land. When you walk through the Land—its length and its breadth—when you come to a shiur from Ofakim and travel 300 kilometers, you sanctify the entire Land. The whole Land becomes like the Holy of Holies, like the holiness of Yerushalayim. They come to Yerushalayim for the shiur and then return, and by doing so they draw the holiness of Yerushalayim onward.

Through coming to Yerushalayim and returning, they sanctify the entire world with the holiness of Yerushalayim, because “Rabbi Yochanan said: In the future, Yerushalayim will extend until the gates of Damascus” (Shir HaShirim Rabbah), and Eretz Yisrael will spread out to the entire world.

Every day we sanctify the world anew. We don’t yet see it, but suddenly the entire world will receive the holiness of Eretz Yisrael—and then it will be forbidden to walk with shoes.

The moment we become holy with the holiness of Yerushalayim—with the holiness of the Beis HaMikdash—then we do not walk with shoes. Because Reuven did not walk with shoes; Shimon did not walk with shoes; no one had shoes—but suddenly they sold Yosef, and that was it: it was no longer possible to walk without shoes.

Because the Tzaddik draws down holiness. Only through the Tzaddik. And when people oppose the Tzaddik—when they disgrace and humiliate him—“And let my soul be like dust to all” (Berachos 17a): he is brought down to the floor.

We must sanctify the entire Land with the holiness of Yerushalayim—with the holiness of the Beis HaMikdash, the Holy of Holies. The entire Land is sanctified. It is written that Shlomo sanctified the entire courtyard. In a time when there was no Beis HaMikdash, it was permitted to bring offerings anywhere, because everything was holy with the holiness of Eretz Yisrael—with the holiness of the Holy of Holies, with the holiness of Yerushalayim. But from the moment the Beis HaMikdash was built, it is no longer possible to bring offerings elsewhere—only for non-Jews it is permitted; for us it is forbidden.

It is written in the Rambam, in the laws of avodah, that non-Jews are permitted to establish a Beis HaMikdash anywhere, but for us it is forbidden, as it says: “An altar to Hashem within the land of Egypt” (Yeshayahu 19:19).