Igros Moshe (E.H. IV #32.9):Shaking hands with women as greeting. It is obviously prohibited as I have written previously (O.C. 113) because of concerns for sexual arousal and pleasure. However I wrote (E.H. 56) that if you see religious Jews who are lenient to judge them favorably and assume that they are relying on the absence of sexual arousal and pleasure but I also wrote there that it is difficult to rely on this. I don’t see any inconsistency between prohibiting shaking hands but permitting riding on buses (E.H. 2:14) since there is no affection involved there for almost everyone
Igros Moshe (OC I #133):Question : Is it permissible to shake a women’s hand for a greeting? Answer It is clearly prohibited even if she is not married since she is a Niddah and ir is surely prohibited if she is married
Igros Moshe (EH I #56): Question : Is it permissible to shake a women’s hand for a greeting?Answer This that you have seen even religious people who are lenient in this, perhaps it is because they think that if there is no pleasure or lust involved it is permitted. It is difficult to rely on that.
Rav Yehuda Henkin, zt"l, has a long teshuva on this where he approaches it as a form of social behaviour. For example, if you walk into a room with men and women and are expected to shake everyone's hand equally as a form of greeting, then he sees no reason to forbid it as long as the contact is kept brief.
ReplyDeleteTherefore there are some who are lenient? Rav Moshe says he disagrees
DeleteI was told that this was common among German rabbis.
Others such as the Chazon Ish were stricter
Other considerations include trying to avoid being rude. If everyone's doing it, for the frum guy to announce "I don't shake hands with women, it's a religious thing" might be negatively received.
Delete(Of course, if he said "I'm Muslim and don't shake hands with women" people would fall over themselves to apologize for even thinking he might but what can you do)