Sorry, I'm preserving my sex hormones", I feel like replying whenever I am subject to the embarrassing "handshake" phenomena of a Jewish frum life. Commonly referred to as the shomer negiah (lit. guarding touch) concept, this aspect of the mitzvah of tznius (lit. modesty) refers to the idea that according to Jewish Law, members of the opposite sex are prohibited from having any sort of physical, tactile contact with one another. Now what is this all about? Does Torah not respect us as human beings enough to trust that a simple inoffensive handshake will not turn into a raging love affair? Furthermore, even if this does occur, so what, then? Avoiding sex before marriage is understandable due to the complications involved, however innocent romance flings pose seemingly no harm (Aside from the obvious fact of course that Judaism recurrently emphasizes purposefulness and dating for "fun" is a debatable purpose). The essential issue lies at the core of our selves. A being was created on the 6th day, whom Torah refers to as Adam. There is a midrash(commentary) that tells us that this Adam was both male and female in gender. This is difficult to grasp and a simple hermaphroditic image is extremely inaccurate. One of the things which distinguished this being from amongst the other creatures was his essential uniqueness, or oneness. The Creator created two of every being, aside from this one. One is bliss. When someone is all alone in a room, all inhibitions are forgotten. Goals may be achieved, decisions may be thought out and concluded upon, and there is no one there to interfere or abstract things. However, what is accomplished in such a state can feel somewhat pointless, and can even lead to frustration or other anxieties if there is no one there to appreciate or contrast to, ever. Thus G-d saw that it was not good for Adam to be alone, and so He separated Adam, by extracting the female side. This separation produced the human emotions involved in longing, or lust, or an attraction to members of the opposite sex. Soon after, these two beings, whom we know as Adam and Chava (or Eve), were given their first commandment by G-d: "Pru Urvu (be fruitful and multiply)". The fact that this was the first commandment ever given to us signifies its significance. Before we were separated, we were blissful in a certain sense, but yet entirely devoid of a sense of purpose. Now that Human had been split, we were endowed with a clear sense of purpose: to reunify. In here resides a tremendous paradox. While still unified, physically, it was impossible for the female and the male to become any closer, however the attributes of Chochma (lit. Wisedom) and Binah (lit. Understanding) (which characterize the male and the female respectively) would forever remain inept and polarized, never truly uniting to produce the Da'at (lit. knowledge, understood Kabalistically as the combination of the attributes of Chochma and Binah, or the offspring they produce) necessary to perpetuate life. Only after when they are physically separated, does the Torah tell us: "V'Adam Yada (coming from the root of Da'at) et Chava" (translated as, and Adam knew Eve). All humans are descendants of Adam and Chava. Their souls contained all of ours combined. Thus all female souls find their root in Chava and all male souls in Adam. Furthermore, this off shooting of their souls occurs in such a way that for every female soul that emerges from Chava, emerges a directly parallel and corresponding male soul, from whom this part of Chava was separated. Thus the purpose remains the same till this day for all of us, to seek out are other half, and cling to him/her, otherwise we remain all too literally incomplete. This search would be fairly easy, if not for one essential component. As all men were extracted from Adam and the women from Chava, it is often difficult to distinguish between our true soul mates, and others who may have somewhat similar spiritual makeups. Someone who is incredibly in touch with the spiritual realms at all times, and there are people who exist who are like this, has no problem because all they need to do is look at the person and see the root of their soul. However, the average person is unfortunately far removed from this level, and thus rarely has such clarity, and what further removes us from this is our continual physical interaction with the opposite sex. I apologize for using such a crude example, however imagine you walk into a store to buy a pair of shoes. The more shoes you try on, the longer it takes. You compare, and retry, and if the other shoes are appealing enough, even after the final purchase is made, you remain somewhat unsatisfied, or unsure that you made the right decision. If instead of rushing to try on every shoe in the store, we first stepped aside and observed the situation objectively, we may end up with far less shoes to choose from. In human life, it is essential to abstain from contact in order to even hope for the possibly of attaining objectivity. This is because everything that occurs in the physical realms, in a manifestation of the action in the spiritual realms. Thus when physical contact occurs down here, in the spiritual world too these two souls are interacting, and a recognition of our longing occurs, because once again everyone essentially stems from the same source. Like a puzzle piece, we check to see if we fit. Even if the match is not perfect, at times the longing is so intense that we fool ourselves into thinking that it is, even if it is clearly far from such. This may by the way explain the tendency that is known to psychology of those with self-esteem problems to seek out many lovers to continuously fill the void within themselves. This feeling of incompleteness is in fact not illogical at all. It only becomes a problem when it is not recognized and dealt with as such. It essential relates back to confusion, and a lack of clarity in purpose and being, which further gets perpetuated in these "unmatching" relationships, thus producing a vicious cycle. However the fact remains, a handshake is simply a handshake, and not every man/woman we shake hands with do we fall madly in love with, correct? This is absolutely true. And herein lies the problem. The fact that we have become so desensitized to touch and our other senses is quite unfortunate. It baffles my mind to think that a man can look at woman who is literally half dressed straight in the face and conduct a conversation with her, and may not even get aroused! We are bombarded with sexual images at all hours of the day, but yet we are forced to suppress our feelings in order to continue living a normal and respectable life. However the cost of all of this is that when we do then G-d willing find our soulmates, and marry them, and are placed in similar, but now more appropriate situations, our minds have been conditioned to continue to suppress. Aside from the fact that a lack of the practice of nidah (the Torah concept of family purity, in which the couple abstain themselves from touching one another for a period during the month corresponding to the woman's menstrual cycle), may lead to an eventual degradation or dulling of the initial sense of excitement or anticipation in the relationship. Imagine if on your wedding night, you are about to touch your wife/husband's hand and you have never touched another woman/man before in your entire life, even for a handshake. Imagine how much that initial touch and every touch of the other half of your soul thereafter would mean. Whatever is holy in Torah we cover out of respect, and out of protection from kelipah (lit. husks. Kabbalitically the cause of what we percieve to be evil in this world. These entities hide withing them G-d's omnipresence more than anything else, and thus tend to be attracted to things which reveal G-dliness the most in order to extract from them energy). Thus we cover a sefer Torah, the Challa on Shabbos, and thus we cover our bodies in the way in which the Creator commanded us to.
