De-croced

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the bayou ... Ooops, wrong crocs.

But this is seriously one of the more ridiculous stories I've read in a while, and that's saying a lot.

Rabbi Elyashiv of the Lithuanian stream of ultra-Orthodoxy has ruled that it is best not to wear Crocs shoes on Yom Kippur even though they are not made out of leather and, therefore, would seemingly be permissible for the holiday. His reasoning behind the ruling is that they are too comfortable, and thus don't provide the level of suffering one should feel on the holiday.

Leather is traditionally not worn on Yom Kippur as a symbol of humility and increased humanity on the atonement holiday.

Ok, it's possible to take this discomfort thing too far, and I think we're there.  The sneakers that were ubiquitous before Crocs came along were pretty darn comfy and no one complained about those.  My Chabad rabbi and all his kids wear Crocs on Yom Kippur (or did last year, anyway). But, hey, maybe we should wear wooden boards with spikes in them on a day we spend mostly on our feet in supplication. Or require everyone to wear high heels and pointy toes (men too?).  That's about as uncomfortable as you can get, IMO, short of forgetting about shoes altogether and just arranging ourselves on a good, sturdy rack.

I don't own a pair of Crocs, by the way.  I just don't find them ... so comfortable.  Hmmm.

Shabbat Shuva Shalom.