Q&A: Laws of Niddah
Laws of Niddah
Question
Hello Rabbi. I wanted to ask regarding the prohibition on handing things directly and touching during the forbidden period between a husband and wife: if there is no concern at all of increased intimacy through handing something, and this way of acting also makes things very cumbersome, especially between spouses, is there any room to be lenient and hand things directly from one hand to the other?
B. Is one required to be especially careful about unintentional touching, or not?
C. Is there any problem with the wife being at home in a short-sleeved shirt?
Thank you very much in advance.
Answer
The opinions are divided on this. See here for a fairly comprehensive overview:
https://www.yeshiva.org.il/wiki/index.php/%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%97%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%AA_%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%A9%D7%AA%D7%95_%D7%A0%D7%93%D7%94
I think there is no room to be lenient when there is no need. When there is a need, then yes.
A short-sleeved shirt does not seem problematic to me (nowadays quite a few women dress that way even outside). In general, the halakhic decisors disagreed whether a husband is forbidden to look only at the private area or at all normally covered parts of the body. The straightforward meaning of the Talmud is like the first view, although most halakhic decisors rule like the second. a0