Shaking hands with men

Atali

Sun, Sep 13 2009, 4:30 pm

Tzippora wrote:

AlwaysGrateful wrote:

Tzippora wrote:

And when I believe something is not a religious requirement, I usually just say "some rabbis say X, some rabbis say Y. I do Y, they do X".

I think that's a wonderful way to respond. The same way I would respond if a coworker said to me, "But the other frum coworker in this office said she won't eat X because it's not old enough or something (yoshon)." I wouldn't be upset that she put me in a difficult situation, nor would I think that her rav shouldn't have told her to do that, or that she shouldn't have been machmir on that. I would just say that some people do X, but I do Y, and that while some religious Jews do Y, many do X instead. I dont' think there's anything wrong with that, nor do that I think that my coworker would be making a chillul Hashem by telling people at work that she keeps yoshon. (Of course, that might be too complicated to explain...but the idea still stands.)

I'm not a rav, but I trust my rav to have learned up the sugyas well and to be paskining based on his understanding. If I didn't trust him to be doing that, I would get another rav. I'm sorry that you don't trust that my rav understands the halachos of shomer negiah as much as you do.

(I also trust that your rav has learned up the sugyas well and understands them. And therefore, if he's your rav, and he says you can shake hands with men at work, then you are obviously correct in doing so.)

But then the co-worker inevitably wants to know what the basis for Y and X are, and so I end up in a position where I end up explaining the sugya TO them. And yes, I do have to tell them when I think various aspects of Jewish practice are misguided, because then they ask WHY I do one or the other. That does put me in an uncomfortable position, and I'm not going to justify another point of view when I don't believe in it.

I do not believe that not shaking hands is a very legit point of view based on halacha. I do understand why people are machmir in many contexts, but I don't believe that a professional environment is an appropriate context for chumra. It's very different than eating yashan, which is not directly tied to your employment.

What makes you so convinced that touching a member of the opposite gender not b'derech chiba isn't a problem?

shnitzel

Sun, Sep 13 2009, 4:36 pm

Atali wrote:

Tzippora wrote:

AlwaysGrateful wrote:

Tzippora wrote:

And when I believe something is not a religious requirement, I usually just say "some rabbis say X, some rabbis say Y. I do Y, they do X".

What makes you so convinced that touching a member of the opposite gender not b'derech chiba isn't a problem?

Rav Shanshon Raphael Hirsch used to shake women's hands in shul. He held it was perfectly fine. There are other opinions who hold it is yeharog v'al yaavor. I've been told by rabbonim that it is fine in some situations. If you are chassidish then your rav would say something different.

Atali

Sun, Sep 13 2009, 4:38 pm

shnitzel wrote:

Atali wrote:

Tzippora wrote:

AlwaysGrateful wrote:

Tzippora wrote:

And when I believe something is not a religious requirement, I usually just say "some rabbis say X, some rabbis say Y. I do Y, they do X".

What makes you so convinced that touching a member of the opposite gender not b'derech chiba isn't a problem?

I was contesting Tzipora's statement that it is "not a very legit point of view in halacha". The whole world doesn't pasken according to R'Hirsch.

Atali

Sun, Sep 13 2009, 5:33 pm

Tzippora wrote:

The issur d'rabonon is against s*xual contact with a niddah, based on the d'oraisa issur against actual s*x with a niddah. Anything else is minhag/chumra.

All based on the pasuk of lo tikrivu l'galos ervah.

Therefore, non-s*xual contact with a niddah may be something you don't do, or your rav doesn't do, but it is not halacha.

Halacha is not as simple as you make it out to be.

IIRC, but I will bli neder look into it, s*xual contact with a niddah that is not relations is an issur d'oraisa but not chayav kareis (based on the above-mentioned passuk), but non-s*xual contact is d'rabbonon.

AlwaysGrateful

Sun, Sep 13 2009, 5:42 pm

Tzippora wrote:

AlwaysGrateful wrote:

Tzippora wrote:

And when I believe something is not a religious requirement, I usually just say "some rabbis say X, some rabbis say Y. I do Y, they do X".

Now that may be a chillul Hashem. I'm not sure, depends on what you end up saying. But it would not be a chillul Hashem if you said, politely, "We don't touch people of the opposite gender in a s*xual way. Some people take that farther and don't touch people of the opposite gender at all." There is no reason to malign your fellow Jew's opinion to your coworkers just because you don't believe in it. You make it sound like you have no choice. You do.

Tzippora

Sun, Sep 13 2009, 6:12 pm

AlwaysGrateful wrote:

Tzippora wrote:

AlwaysGrateful wrote:

Tzippora wrote:

And when I believe something is not a religious requirement, I usually just say "some rabbis say X, some rabbis say Y. I do Y, they do X".

That's pretty much what I say. And then the question becomes - why don't you do it?

They're not trying to be rude, but I can't blame them for wondering why one group of people picks up this weird (to them) practice when others don't.

AlwaysGrateful

Sun, Sep 13 2009, 8:36 pm

It's funny, because I've only had one coworker, ever, who would have dug this deeply. Everyone else just would have said "Oh, okay," and moved on.

For that last coworker, I would have preferred to be vague and say "Some people do this, some people do that" over and over again until she got that that was all she was going to get out of me, rather than badmouth frum people who listen to their rabbeim. I know that that last line sounded strong, but I really can't figure out how else to phrase it...I try my hardest to give off a "live and let live" attitude to non-Jewish coworkers, unless they say something that is completely against halacha - I obviously would not defend that.

Again, treat it as yoshon. How would you answer that, if they kept on pressing you? "Some people have that custom"? Not necessarily true. It's that some people are machmir like that, and others aren't. So however you'd explain that (I assume you wouldn't say "It's a ridiculous custom that some rabbis thought up because they like making life difficult for people"), explain this the same way.

Tzippora

Sun, Sep 13 2009, 10:22 pm

AlwaysGrateful wrote:

My coworkers, the majority of them, do ask the followup questions and where things come from. I actually tend to be rather direct about what I do and don't believe, and why, since I find that trying to bob and weave insults them and upsets them more.

But my issue is less about halacha than them having the assumption that all Orthodox people are weird/antisocial because of their experiences with them. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten "I can't believe you're Orthodox, you're so NORMAL". And part of that is unnecessary stringencies people take on themselves, like handshaking or looking at women (not leering, clearly, but speaking directly to them) in meetings. And if it's a choice between chumra and chilul Hashem - and that is indeed the choice in many many situations - how can you justify that?

ora_43

Mon, Sep 14 2009, 6:05 am

Tzippora wrote:

But my issue is less about halacha than them having the assumption that all Orthodox people are weird/antisocial because of their experiences with them. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten "I can't believe you're Orthodox, you're so NORMAL". And part of that is unnecessary stringencies people take on themselves, like handshaking or looking at women (not leering, clearly, but speaking directly to them) in meetings. And if it's a choice between chumra and chilul Hashem - and that is indeed the choice in many many situations - how can you justify that?

As others have explained, avoiding non-s-xual contact with a niddah is not "chumra" according to many rabbis. The word "chumra" doesn't mean "anything stricter than the most lenient interpretation of a particular issur."

And how are you defining "chilul Hashem"? Not everything that makes people who aren't frum, or people who aren't Jewish uncomfortable is a "chillul Hashem." For example, most of the non-frum/non-Jewish people I know find kashrut more offensive than negia (IOW it's more offensive that their food is "dirty" or "not good enough" than that someone doesn't want to be physically affectionate) - that doesn't make keeping kosher a chillul Hashem, not even close.