Hand Jobs and Chassidim

Working in a business environment dressed as a chassid is not always equally easy. It is not that everybody gangs up on me to make my life miserable, although many Chassidim today do claim that the easy relationship that was possible before this last intifada is no longer possible. Personally I have never really experienced this. My problem is with female customers.

I am no sexist. I fervently believe that women in market place have managed to make it a friendlier, not to mention more colourful, environment. I also believe that the female intuition, that we males so enjoy belittling, is a major asset in business negotiation. And there can be no denying that where compassion and order are the names of the game the women simply leave us men standing at the start line. My problem is that there can be no doubt that in Halachic law, men and women unmarried to each other do not touch each other and in shaking hands it is customary to touch. It is a thorny issue that has hounded Chassidim and other orthodox Jews for as long as women have been considered as equals in the market place (which is not long actually).

To be perfectly frank the whole issue does not bother me personally. I had to make my peace years ago with the fact that I am not strong enough to take on the entire country’s 1000 years of tradition. Since I got my current job and my current vice-president who, in her own words ‘happens to be a woman’, I have taken the cowards exit and I do not make a fuss about shaking hands with women.

This issue is not one that is never discussed. I have had many a discussion with friends, talmidei chahchamim (torah scholars) and others who live in the public arena. The disturbing truth is that, with the arrogance common to many Chassidim who have never really peaked out from under the quilt, they are fully convinced that their Rabbinic bearing and fortitude under fire are recognized by the hapless females who are denied their hand, and that they are thus revered and admired for their courage.

The truth is that almost all the women I have ever spoken to about this ARE offended. It is possibly true that if the young abstainer would have the time, the energy and the opportunity to clearly explain that the reason he is not shaking hands with her are not intended to undermine her position as a woman, the act of refusing to shake would be less inflammatory. It is however not easy to explain the whole concept of the segregation of the sexes the way we see it to a modern, liberated and successful woman. Far less to a woman who had to fight tooth-and-nail against candidates much weaker than her just to reach her current position, and who knows that in fact if she were male she would have had the top job by now.

We do not shake hands because we believe that sexual tension is created every time males and females interact. Whether that tension is overt and recognized or repressed and fleeting it is usually, or at least often, there. Men and women in Chassidic society never shake hands with each other. That is not a reflection of the woman’s role in society any more than it suggests that all Chassidim are sex maniacs, both of which could be implicit in the ban.

I have in any event never felt even a slight flutter of titillation when shaking hand with a woman although I do not use that excuse as a justification. I did get my come-uppance a couple of weeks back when I walked into a room to meet a couple of new clients. I saw immediately that they were religious Jews, They were wearing kappels on their heads however I entered the room and shook hands with the president and then the vice and as I waited to be introduced to the clients my vice whispered in my ear “you just let the side down”. It seems that these clients had simply refused to shake hands with her and had explained that it was not an insult to her because they did not even shake hands with the women in their own families.

For some strange reason she was not offended. The clients were very gallant and made no mention of the fact to me but I have to admit that it rattled me. I don’t know what will happen next time I am faced with an outstretched hand with polished nails. I somehow doubt that I will run the risk of offending an innocent woman for a reason I cannot fully comprehend myself. However I can tell all you women out there that if you want to make a chassid uncomfortable say it with a twinkle “Letting the side down I see”.