It is, in truth, an excellent question, when you stop to think about it. If a blind man “sees” what people look like by touching their faces, how is a blind Orthodox man—prohibited from touching a woman who is not his wife—to see what a potential wife looks like? Thankfully, Rabbi Yuval Sherlo, head of Israel’s Petah Tikva Hesder Yeshiva, has provided an answer, Ynet reported yesterday: A blind Orthodox man may indeed feel his date—so long as he intends to marry her. “This is the way a blind man gets to know his partner,” the rabbi wrote. “It may even be correct to say that he is required to touch her.” While a religious ruling says men may not look at women because of their beauty, but Sherlo acknowledges one still wants to know about a potential wife’s appearance. “A blind man cares about many things, even if he cannot see them,” he said.
Jesse Oxfeld, a former executive editor and publisher of Tablet Magazine, is a freelance theater critic. He was The New York Observer’s theater critic from 2009 to 2014.