Unlike one’s more sophisticated, intellectual and emotional faculties, one’s feet, the lowest part of one’s body, represent unlimited capacity, for one’s feet are associated with the lofty level of emunah, belief. The feet are not controlled by or restricted in any way to the limited grasp of one’s mind or heart. Since the feet do not perceive or feel, they are prepared to persevere in pursuits that the mind or heart would be reluctant to, due to the emotion of fear or intellectual doubts and skepticism.

It is in one’s feet (i.e., one’s emunah) that the essence of one’s highest and greatest potential can be manifest. It is precisely the feet that are able to lift the rest of one’s body to a higher plane.

This concept is made vividly clear using the example of an ancient tool known as the lever, now known as a fork lift. Its purpose is to lift something up from the very bottom of a heavy load which in turn allows the entire load to be raised with little effort. It is the bottom, the lowest level, that possesses the answer to lifting everything above it.

This lesson is scattered throughout chassidic writings. It is a philosophy that increases the level of significance of that which ordinarily is paid little, if any, attention to.

Toras Menachem, Vol. 25, p. 234