I grew up with everyone keeping shomer negiah but I never learned the actual sources inside, and I have real questions about how it works.
1. Where is the Torah source for negiah? People point to lo sikrevu legalos ervah (Vayikra 18:6). The Rambam in Sefer HaMitzvos (lav 353) counts touching as part of that Torah prohibition, and the Ramban argues on him right there. Then in Issurei Biah 21:1 the Rambam himself gives makas mardus, which sounds derabanan, and the Raavad there says the Torah only forbade the act itself. So what is it actually, Torah or derabanan, and does it depend on the kind of touch?
2. What does the word touch even mean here? A handshake, a tap on the shoulder, brushing past someone on a bus, helping someone up off the floor? Is the line chibah, touching with affection, or pleasure, or any physical contact at all? Where does the halacha actually draw it?
3. What about people who grew up kissing on the cheek their whole lives, family custom or social custom, like kissing your aunt or a cousin at a simcha, or the way Sefardi and Middle Eastern families greet each other? If there is no romance and no pleasure in it, just the custom everyone in the family does, is that inside the prohibition or outside it?
4. When dating, what exactly is allowed and what is not, and why? If the whole point of dating is to build toward marriage, how does the halacha expect two people to know if they are attracted to each other with zero touch at all?
5. What is the point of the issur altogether? Is it a fence for arayos, is it about kedusha and how a person relates to their own body, or is the physical contact itself the problem? The answer changes how every edge case comes out.
6. And relations before marriage, where does that issur come from, Torah or derabanan? And does anything change if the woman goes to the mikveh first?
I know that this will create a lot of controversy, but people come here for the truth, so they will get the truth.
https://kashrut.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/The-Halachic-Perspective-on-Premarital-Relationships.pdf
https://kashrut.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/The-Jewish-Laws-on-Touching-and-Looking-at-Women.pdf
I think the first mistake is defining shomer negiah as “a man may never touch a woman.” If that were the Halachah, the Gemara itself would be very difficult to understand. Ulla would come home and kiss his sisters on their hands …. according to another version, on their chests …. and the Gemara immediately says ופליגא דידיה אדידיה, “Ulla contradicts himself,” because Ulla himself said that ordinary kirvah should be avoided: לך לך אמרין נזירא, סחור סחור לכרמא לא תקרב (Avodah Zarah 17a). Rav Acha would put the bride on his shoulders and dance. When the other rabbis asked whether they could do the same, he answered: אי דמיין עלייכו ככשורא …. לחיי, ואי לא …. לא: if to you she is like a wooden beam, fine; otherwise, no (Ketubot 17a). And there are many more similar stories. Why would the Gemara preserve stories like these if touching itself were the prohibition? I understand the line as derech chibah or derech ta’avah …. touching that creates or expresses sexual or romantic closeness …. not the mere physical fact that two people made contact. The Rambam himself describes the Torah prohibition as hugging or kissing דרך תאוה ונהנה בקרוב בשר. Helping somebody walk, helping them up the stairs, an ordinary handshake, or other contact that has no such character is therefore a very different question. And these Gemaras show another element as well: people are not identical. Something that creates improper closeness for one person may genuinely mean nothing to another. That is the approach I discussed at greater length in my earlier article (in the comments).
As for relationships before marriage, there is another subject that today is almost treated as though it were a joke or a euphemism for an affair: pilegesh. That is not what the classical concept means. It is a committed relationship without the full framework of kiddushin and ketubah; it is not promiscuity, and the laws of niddah still apply. The Yaavetz, R. Yaakov Emden, has a remarkable teshuvah on this (She’elat Yaavetz II:15). He argues strongly that such a relationship can actually serve as a siyag against promiscuity and can also increase pru urvu. He was quite unhappy that this legitimate framework had effectively disappeared, writing that closing the door to the permissible can cause people to fall into much more serious prohibitions.
I should emphasize that this is not the way these subjects are commonly taught in Orthodox communities today. Most communities use a much broader rule of complete avoidance of physical contact between unmarried men and women, and the Rambam and Shulchan Aruch themselves contain additional stringent language regarding affectionate contact even with certain relatives. But they still need to fit with the Gemaras. I am explaining how I understand these Gemaras and why I do not think the slogan “Halachah says men and women cannot touch” accurately describes what the sources themselves say. The actual question is what kind of contact it is, what it means, and what effect it has on the people involved.