My client walked in a half hour late to our appointment, a professional discourtesy that I overlooked because money is worth more than my pride these days. After another half hour of going over her business proposals, she handed me the cash and we stood up to part ways. We agreed on meeting again on a future date and I extended my hand out of professional courtesy. There it hung for several awkward seconds, lingering in the space between us like an unwanted guest or a severed pig’s trotter. I had only met the woman, but she stared at my hand with a mixture of contempt and surprise.
Another time recently, I encountered a friend on the street who was walking with a female friend of hers. When I extended my hand in introduction, it was received with a porcine snort and a gorgonian stare of disbelief.
These are not isolated incidents, rather, symptoms of a growing puritanical stringency among young modern Orthodox women who believe that all acts between a woman’s hand and a man’s person are equally sinful.
I care not whether you believe in pre-marital sexual abstinence and refuse to engage in anything akin to such behavior with men. That’s your business. But to flout a non-sexual, universal, and commonplace gesture on the grounds of sexual abstinence is unprofessional, contemptuous, haughty, and rude. There are no halachic grounds for refusing to shake a man’s hand - certainly not in a professional setting - nor is there any halachic sanctioning of embarrassing or slighting someone by refusing to shake their hand in public.
These Jerusalemite “faux pas” on my behalf do not come out of ignorance, but rather as a result of modern Orthodox women’s inconsistency in this matter. A great many - daresay the majority - will shake a man’s hand, while a zealous minority shun such norms. A friend of mine who, now being married, covers her head will by no means refuse a handshake and sees no religious justification behind this practice.
Rabbi Dovid Shapiro, former principal of the Maimonides school and my teacher while studying there, specifically noted that refusal shake a man’s hand when proffered is socially and halachically unacceptable.
Those who refuse to shake a man’s hand forget the ancient rabbinic precept of "social norms take precedence to Torah law". By consciously flouting this accepted Western social norm, they are contravening modern and ancient religious dictates and making “modern” Orthodoxy look medieval.
So what am I supposed to do? Presume someone’s religious orientation and withhold extending my hand to women whatsoever? No, I will continue to extend my hand to women regardless of religious affiliation, but woe unto she who reviles me by refusing to grasp my outstretched arm. I will return her indignity with a courteous reply the notes the halachic incongruity of her Puritanism: one should rather give up their life than embarrass another person (Bava Metsia: 59a).
M’lady, the choice is before you. Just shake my hand.
Ilan Ben Zion is an active blogger currently living in Jerusalem; he is a graduate of Tel Aviv University with a Masters in Diplomacy and a veteran of the IDF.
