Dear BBT
I am wondering if you could help me answer a question.
In a class I gave this evening, a woman told us of an incident that happened to her that upset her very much. She was in a store and the worker behind the counter, a chassidishe gentleman, would not take her credit card from her hand, and indicated that she should put it down instead. She is a BT and was upset about this. She felt that he “embarrassed” her in public over what she felt was a “super chumrah”.
I wonder if you could please give me any background information regarding this halacha/chumra/whatever, so that I can show her where it is coming from.
Thank you
b’chavod,
Chana
And to be dan l’kaf z’chus on the other side, maybe he indicated with his hand instead of explaining because he speaks only Yiddish, and figured that if she did not put the credit card down in the first place, she was likely to not understand him?
Charlie, that’s exactly what happened to me one time. I shook hands with a Black man in a business situation becuase I was terrified of being accused of bigotry if I did not.
Rabbi Yehuda Herzl Henkin has a well-sourced article related to this:
http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%204%20Henkin.pdf
Something to note: Many African Americans are very sensitive to white bigots thinking they are dirty and refusing any casual contact. Refusing to accept or give money directly from/to their hands might cause them to think that we are bigots, chas v’shalom.
There is a non-religious Jew named Randy Cohen who runs a column called The Ethicist. To tell you the honest truth, I don’t know why he was appointed the guru of ethical behavior (unless he completed training with the Society for Ethical Culture or something like that). Maybe it’s like the old advice columnists Ann Landers and Dear Abby, where he just wound up writing this column. Anyway, in one column The Ethicist discussed a situation where an Orthodox Jewish man in a real estate firm refused to shake the hand of a woman who was buying a house through him. She was so enraged that she reneged on the deal. Randy Cohen, not being a religious Jew, supported the woman’s position, saying that she was the one who was ethically correct.
I don’t remember all the particulars of the case. Possibly the man handled the situation badly and tactlessly. Rabbi Avigdor Miller OBM used to tell men they should say they’re not allowed to shake hands with a beautiful woman, and then the woman is flattered not offended. Certainly it’s not great when there’s religious tolerance for everyone else’s religious beliefs except for Orthodox Judaism.
In the picture, the Satmar Rav is actual making the bracha on seeing a melech. Is there a makor that one should not bow down to a gentile king? I’ve never heard of that.
At what point does protocol trump normative Jewish practice? There is a famous picture of the Satmar Rebbe bowing to the King of Romania. Do observant Jews bow to secular leaders? Would you shake the First Lady’s hand if it was offered. The action is very quick. Is there time to explain that “I don’t shake a woman’s hand for religious reasons”? My guess is tat you would do as the Indonesian President did, sort of shake and regret it later.
Michoel
I agree with your general lesson, but I’m not sure we can apply it to this case.
In the Indonesia incident Mrs Obama extended her hand so that there may have been more grounds to shake it because it would be a rejection of her greeting gesture. In our case, extending the credit card was not a greeting gesture so perhaps it’s different.
If the cashier would have explained that he never takes things directly from any women other than his wife, would the BT woman have been offended?
If she would have been offended anyway, then she may be lacking some sensitivity to the cashier’s point of view.
If she would not have been offended with a good explanation, but he didn’t then the cashier may be lacking some sensitivity to the BT’s point of view.
Mark,
Perhaps we should make a kal v’chomer. If the “queen” of America is shown such sensitivity by a non-Jew (no slight to either intended) how much more so must we Torah observant Jews be sensitive to the queens (every Jewish women) amongst us.
I don’t think I’d be violating any confidences by telling you that the leader of Indonesia does not yet subscribe to BeyondBT.
But putting Michoel’s funny comment aside, it is a pretty amazing timing coincidence. To say that the Michele Obama incident happened because of our post is hard to believe. But the fact is that it did happen soon after this post, so perhaps we should learn something from it.
Maybe it’s important to have a dual sensitivity in these situations, to the one who extended the hand and to the one who has to react to the gesture. Just because others may or may not have a sensitivity in a given situation, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t continue to develop ours.
We can use our witnessing of any embarrassing situation to deepen our abilities to deal properly with people.
Someone should write a spreadsheet or something comparing and contrasting Halacha with its poor imitation, Sharia.
Yeah, BeyondBT is pretty widely read amongst world leaders and other movers and shakers.
What’s really interesting is that this exact same chumra made it into the secular news. First Lady Michele Obama, on a state visit with the President to Indonesia (the world’s largest Muslim nation, and where the President spent five years of his childhood until he returned to live with his grandparents in Hawaii) extended her hand to the leader of Indonesia, who shook it. This led to a lot of comment in the world news, as it seems that observant Muslim men do not generally shake hands with women either. Also interesting is that the leader of Indonesia justified his action also by stating that he did not initiate the contact, that he was merely responding to Michele Obama’s extended hand. It’s really an amazing coincidence that this issue popped up on Beyond BT at the same time as it surfaced in the secular media.
Notwithstanding the current minhag, it seems to me that there is no issur for a cashier to take money from the hand of an member of the opposite sex or to put change into it. I base my opinion on a well known teshuva of R’ Moshe Feinstein ZTL. He ruled in one case that in is assur to shake hands with a woman in business fashion, even if it is not b’derech chiba. On the other hand, he ruled that a man may travel on a crowded subway even though he may inadvertantly come in contact with a woman. I believe that is the case in making change. Taking and receiving money is not like the case of shaking hands where contact is intentional but is comparable to the case of the subway where the contact is unintentional and incidental to the action of making change.
Chasidim, for better or worse, behave like they and everyone around them is one big mishpacha. When you need to salt from your kid brother, you say, “hertzu Shmiel, pass me the salt already!” You don’t say, “Excuse me honored brother: May I impose upon you to pass me the salt at your soonest convenience.”
They would be surprised to know that anyone found them offensive.
In Israel, chassidim do not hand things to or take things from people of the opposite gender.Surely he did not mean to embarrass her, just acted as he was trained from childhood.
×§×“×•×©×™× ×ª×”×™×• is a wonderful sefer. I learned in in yeshiva in E”Y.
You’ll find in most “frum” stores that the employees are more likely to avoid contact with the opposite sex. It’s sad that this woman was embarassed.
The issue wasn’t if the gentleman *intended* to offend; it is that the woman customer felt embarrassed. Granted, he may be unaware of the effect; but maybe we need to be a little more perceptive of whom we are dealing with and flex accordingly, given that it is permitted. Of course, the woman might also learn not to see this as a personal affront, and to be a bit more accepting of people’s varying manners.
In response to a question from Shmuel Katz in the letters at the back of ×§×“×•×©×™× ×ª×”×™×•, Rav Elimelech Bar Shaul (chief rabbi of Rehovot in his time) writes (my translation): “Is it permitted to extend a hand to a girl or woman out of courtesy with the sole intent of avoiding offending her?” “In Europe God fearing Jews (×”×—×¨×“×™× in his language) would give a hand to a woman, and many rabbis also did so. From what was widely done/accepted there, we may deduce permissibility here. Of course, it is less of a question to respond to an extended hand than to initiate.”
Sometimes we go to places where the folkways include chumros that are not like our practices, so we adapt accordingly.
I recently made aliyah and dress in a conspicuously religious (though not haredi) way. I have noticed that (apparently non-observant) cashiers usually move to put change on the counter instead of my open palm. So this seems to be a common custom.
It seems practically difficult to hold like the Beit Yosef mentioned above, but I don’t see why such an exchange would need to be a cause for embarrassment. Even the most unusual chumras can be presented with grace and humor. If someone takes offense, I agree that it is probably, as the previous commenter said, “internally generated.”
Did this happen in America or Israel?
I don’t think anyone was trying to embarrass her. If the person behind the counter was a chassidishe man, it’s quite likely she was in a frum neighborhood, or a store with a large percentage of frum clientele and workers. So the worker assumed people shopping there understand the norms of the establishment.
Being a BT, she would have most likely been dressed frum, so he would think she knows what to do like anyone else. Was his indication to put the credit card on the counter made condescendingly or with a disparaging remark? I imagine not. Most likely she feels embarrassed that she didn’t know something she was “supposed†to know, and her feelings of embarrassment are internally generated, not that he “embarrassed her in public.â€
Of course, he probably could have handled it in a way that wouldn’t make her feel upset, but I’d guess that it hardly occurred to him that someone would get upset over this. I think there’s place to judge him favorably, don’t you think?
As far as the basis for this chumrah is concerned: The Rambam, according to the Beit Yosef, as well as other poskim, holds the view that touching the hand of the opposite gender violates a Torah prohibition, even when it’s not in an affectionate way (derech chibah). The Shach has a different understanding of the Rambam, and says that even according to the Rambam if it’s not derech chibah it’s not prohibited by Torah law, although many Achronim consider it in any case a prohibition m’d’rabbanan, by Rabbinic decree.
So it’s not far-fetched to see why chassidim, or any other type of chareidi, for that matter, avoid passing change or a credit card to a member of the opposite sex, as a chumrah to avoid actual contact, which is prohibited either by Torah law or Rabbinic decree, according to the poskim they go by.
This is the established norm in chareidi communities in Eretz Yisrael, and no one would take offense that the check-out workers in a supermarket avoid contact by putting the change on the counter, etc.