Since yesterday, we spoke about the chiddush (novel insight) regarding wearing special shoes for Shabbat. So I’ll tell you another chiddush. Hacham Ovadia adds a couple of lines and says, “I have a very big chiddush to share.” What is it? The famous Gemara in masekhet (tractate) Shabbat says that when you put on shoes, we Jews are a little crazy, so whatever we do is a little cuckoo. So when you put on shoes, normally you put on the right shoe first and then the left, but when you remove your shoes, you remove the left shoe first and then the right.
Hacham Ovadia says that when a person is going to change his shoes from, let’s say, day chol (weekday) shoes to Shabbat shoes, when he removes his shoes, he should remove the right shoe first and then the left. Why? He says that whenever you do a mitzvah (commandment), you start with yamin (right hand). The Gemara says that in masekhet Shabbat. Every mitzvah you do, you do it with the right hand.
If you are removing your shoes in order to wear Shabbat shoes—nicer shoes, lichvod (for the honor of) Shabbat—you obviously cannot wear the shoes unless you remove the chol shoes. That means that removing the chol shoes is also part of the mitzvah. Therefore, removing your shoes of chol is also part of the mitzvah, but you have to remove the right one before you remove the left one, because then you’re doing a mitzvah.
He says the only time that you’re doing a mitzvah is when you remove the shoes. When you remove your shoes for Yom Kippur and for Tisha B’Av, there’s no mitzvah. It’s just an aveirah (sin) if you keep them on. It’s different. Therefore, over there, even for Yom Kippur, you remove the left one before you remove the right one. But here, you’re going to be mekayem (fulfill) a mitzvah by wearing nicer shoes, lichvod Shabbat. Therefore, Hacham Ovadia says, you remove the right shoe and then the left shoe, and that’s the only case where you will have something of it because you’re mekayem a mitzvah. That’s the chiddush that he adds.