Shoes represent all of our “addictions.” Of course, some of these things we truly need to live in the way Hashem intended for our time and place. No one would say that electricity and basic phone usage is a harmful addiction, despite the fact that the world functioned perfectly well for thousands of years without these inventions. But shoes are associated in Torah thought with material things that aren’t really necessary. The word for shoes is na’alayim, as in na’al – to be locked into something, and often we are locked into physical items which not only aren’t a help to us in avodas Hashem but rather hinder our growth.
So, why then in Mitzrayim did HaKadosh Baruch Hu tell us to keep our shoes on? At that special time, Hashem was showing us that we could uplift our material items, our “shoes,” and use them for kedusha.
Armed with this understanding of what shoes symbolize, we suggest that the brothers exchanged Yosef for shoes to convey their belief that Yosef was arrogant and too involved in his own self and ego. They felt that the special coat and leadership role Yaakov had given him had “gone to his head” and that he enjoying lording over them.
Rav Dovid Feinstein says that when a person is excommunicated by beis din, placed in cherem, he is not allowed to wear shoes. This symbolizes his shame and remorse for his actions. The brothers specifically bought shoes to show that they believed their psak to be totally correct and had no doubt or remorse. Rav Eli Wolf’s sefer on haftaras (page 109-110) cites an explanation that since the Gemara (Shabbos 152a) says that one who has no shoes is considered a slave, the brothers bought shoes to show that they would be free, and Yosef a slave.
And these are some of the happenings in this week’s haftarah.