What kind of hand-washer are you? Are you the considerate type that fills up the cup for the person behind you during the pre-challah congo line? Or are you the eco-type that worries about how much water you’re using. Maybe you’re the super frum type who uses a ton of water (and keeps washing again and again all morning after touching your shoes), or maybe you’re the lazy type that sprinkles some water on your knuckles and calls it a day.
I personally am a closet hand-washer. I can’t get up the guts to wash netilas yadayim in the lunchroom where I work, so instead I wash my hands in the small trash can in my office (weird, I know) just so I can avoid strange looks at my pre-sandwich cleansing ritual. I always wonder what the janitor must think – is this lady trying to water her desk plant and misses and hits the garbage instead, like every single day?
On a more spiritual note, I recently had the good fortune to take part in a prayer class with Rabbi Menachem Nissel, in which he taught about the morning blessings. With regard to netilas yadayim, one of the points he emphasized was that we are recognizing and acknowledging the sacredness of our hands, which we use to do the daily work of elevating this world. Far from mundane (not to mention skin-drying), doing netilas yadayim is a constant reminder that the work of our hands is both worthy of a blessing and of being blessed. May we each experience that blessing in myriad ways each day.
