Before telling others to wash their hands, you may have to...

Wash Your Brain

An older woman works as a teacher’s aide at the school where I am a teacher. Every day at the ten o’clock snack break, she would pull a cheese sandwich out of her purse and eat it in the classroom while she and I supervised the children. I was very surprised by this behavior, because I assumed that she was Torah observant. She wore a sheitel (wig worn by Orthodox Jews) and was always modestly dressed; so why was she eating bread without first washing her hands as required by halacha?

Finally, near the end of the school year, she mentioned in the course of a conversation that she washes her hands and eats a little piece of bread before leaving for work in the morning, having in mind that she will continue her meal during the snack break, because it would be impossible to leave the children while she went and washed at school. I felt terrible for having been so quick to misjudge her.

Submitted by an Ohrnet reader via the Internet

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