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Perek 12 deals with the details of the actual halitzah ceremony. To the left is a picture of the kind of halitzah sandal that is used in contemporary times, which is designed not at all to be a functional shoe, but to satisfy the requirements spelled out in Mishnayot one and two of our perek.
Before starting the perek it is worth reviewing the Torah's description of the Halitzah ceremony (in Devarim chapter 25), as the Mishnayot in the perek, and the disagreements found in the perek, all track the Torah's text pretty carefully. The various mishnayot work to define (among other items) the legal role of as well as the number of "elders" who need to be involved, the precise definition of the word נעל (shoe / sandal), and on exactly how necessary the performance of the various lines of dialogue are to the efficacy of the ceremony. So here's the Torah's text for your review:
But if that party does not want to take his brother’s widow [to wife], his brother’s widow shall appear before the elders in the gate and declare, “My husband’s brother refuses to establish a name in Israel for his brother; he will not perform the duty of a yavam.”
The elders of his town shall then summon him and talk to him. If he insists, saying, “I do not want to take her,” his brother’s widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, pull the sandal off his foot, spit in his face, and make this declaration: Thus shall be done to the man who will not build up his brother’s house! And he shall go in Israel by the name of “the family of the unsandaled one.”
And just one more thing that seems relevant to the story f this perek, and that is, "what, to begin with, is this entire ceremony intended to symbolize?". The truth is that we're not entirely sure, as the halitzah ceremony seems to belong to that realm of things whose symbolic significance was obvious to people of Biblical times, but has gotten lost in the passage of centuries. That being said, here are some thoughts borrowed from our good friends at Wikipedia:
The ceremony of loosening the shoe has been explained in various ways. From the incident in the Book of Ruth (4:7–8), which certainly refers to this ancient custom, it seems the loosening of the shoe symbolized a transfer of rights, and had no stigma attached to it. Some later rabbis—Yechiel of Paris, for instance—say the removal of the shoe symbolized the entrance into a state of mourning. From the time the yabam refused to marry his brother's widow and thus perpetuate his name in Israel, the brother was considered dead, and the yebamah, by drawing off his shoe, thus declared to him that from that time on he was a mourner.[10]
Another possibility comes from Wesley's Notes:
Deut 25:9 Loose his shoe - As a sign of his resignation of all his right to the woman, and to her husband's inheritance: for as the shoe was a sign of one's power and right, Psa 60:8 108:9, so the parting with the shoe was a token of the alienation of such right; and as a note of infamy, to signify that by this disingenuous action he was unworthy to be amongst free - men, and fit to be reduced to the condition of the meanest servants, who used to go barefoot (Isa 20:2,4).
Deut 25:10 His name - That is, his person, and his posterity also. So it was a lasting blot.
A similar example of renouncing rights by removing one's shoe, in this case the renunciation of rights to redeem one's brother's land, appears in the Book of Ruth.
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