[Avodah] Netillat Yadayim with no towel

[Zev Sero]

On 23/07/2012 5:08 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 06:33:51PM +0300, Liron Kopinsky wrote:
> : I was at a restaurant today and they had a washing station, but no towels.
> : They only had an electric hand dryer.
> : Does anyone know what one should do in such a situation?
>
> I know that when no towel is available, you can wave your hands dry.
> I can't see why an air blower is worse.
>
> A nearby shul recently installed air blowers, and there are only paper
> towels at the lobby sinks on Shabbos. Washing before davening lacks the
> gravitas as before hamotzi, but I was wondering if they were pushing
> those who do wash regularly before davening to go with a bedi'eved.

I don't understand the question.  Since when is drying the hands part
of the mitzvah?  AFAIK drying is merely a practical requirement, since
eating bread with wet hands is disgusting, so it makes no difference
how they got dry, and there's not even a lechatchila preference for a
towel.  (Unless you're talking about using a towel to hold the keli,
so as not to make the just-washed right hand tamei with the water that's
on the handle from the previous user.  In the absence of a towel one
can fix that by running water over the handle before transferring it
to the right hand.)


-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
zev at sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
		 are expanding through human ingenuity."
		                            - Julian Simon