In this week’s Parasha, Eliezer, the servant of Avraham, is greeted by Lavan. When Eliezer enters the house, “He takes water to wash his feet, and the feet of those that were with him.”
Rashi tells us that the Torah spends more time learning from the servants of the Avot than from their actual children. Similarly, there are pesukim about Kashrut that take up much less space than the details about the story of Eliezer, servant of Avraham.
What are we to learn about the fact that he took water to wash his feet and the feet of this that went with him?
The Sefer Arugot Habosem mentions an interesting concept. The Midrash, in the Gemarah, uses a term, Avak/Dust when referring to a small area of sin. There is something called, “Avak Ribit/ the dust of Interest.” It’s not really interest, but rather like the “saw-dust” of interest.
Similarly, there is outright lashon hara, and then there is avak/dust of lashon hara. It’s not really lashon hara, but it can come to that.
Avak Avoda Zara - the dust of Avoda Zara, is when a person thinks that his efforts are what make things happen, or when he thinks that it was his ideas or plans that brought things to fruition. It’s not actual Avodah Zara, but it’s Avak- the dust of Avodah Zara.
Eliezer had been successful in his accomplishment, and he was afraid that he might attribute too much to his own work, and take credit for it. So he wanted to wash off the dust, of Avodah Zara that was on his feet.
Similarly, Avraham Avinu asked his guests to wash off their feet. Rashi says that this is because he thought they were from the people that worship the dust on their feet.
That dust on their feet refers to the Avodah Zara of thinking that you did it, and that your feet made it happen.
The pasuk,
ברוך הגבר אשר יבטח בה׳ והיה ה׳ מבטחו
Blessed is the one who trusts in Hashem,
Whose trust is Hashem alone,
means that he fully attributes his success to Hashem.
In truth, when a person does too much hishtadlut/effort, it can backfire.
In the beginning of the Parasha, Avraham dealing with Ephron to buy Ma’arat HaMachpelah.
The name of אפרן/Ephron is spelled there with a letter (the vav) missing, based on a pasuk in Mishleh that says, “A man that is panicked by amassing wealth; a man with an evil eye, doesn’t realize that it will bring loss to him.”
The Gaon of Vilna explains that after Avimelech when he sent Sara home after he took her, he gave her gifts. And, as it says, Avimelech said, “I gave your brother 1,000 kesser.”
But Avraham Avinu did not want to benefit from this money in his lifetime, so he put it away and planned to use it when the time came to buy a kever/ burial site.
The Gaon of Vilna explains that had Ephron not asked for the exorbitant amount of 400 coins for the plot, he would have ended up getting those 1,000 coins, because that was the amount that Avraham had planned to spend (based on the amount given to him by Avimelech).
He explains that Ephron was missing a vav because the numerical value of vav is 6, which refers to the missing 600 coins that he would have gotten, had he not tried to swindle Avraham.
The lesson for us is that when a person that thinks he’s in control, and is always trying various tactics, it backfires.
But when we realize that it’s not us, that clarity removes the “dust” from our feet.
It says that there is a certain tumah/impurity on our hands and feet. All week long, we wash our hands, but there is no washing of the feet.
The Ben Ish Chai explains that that is why that if you touch your feet or shoes, you are Tameh/impure.
However, he says, the kedusha of the Bet HaMikdash allowed us to wash the kohanim’s feet, to remove the impurities. That is why they walked barefoot on the floors of the Bet HaMikdash- because there was no tumah.
There is a halacha brought down in Shulchan Aruch that the minimum washing that a person is required to do on Erev Shabbat is to use hot water on your face, hands and feet, because on Erev Shabbat we can also remove the tumah from our feet.
This makes sense because of the tumah of our feet refers to our feet walking, but when it comes to Shabbat, we realize that Hashem controls the world. He created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, and Shabbat has the power to remove even the Tumah from our feet.
B’ezrat Hashem, we will not have even the Avak of Avodah Zara on our feet, and we will be fully Baalei Bitachon.
Have a Shabbat Shalom.