[Avodah] Netillat Yadayim with no towel

[Zev Sero]

On 24/07/2012 11:06 PM, T613K at aol.com wrote:
> There is a preference to make a bracha first and do the mitzva after.  In the case of netillas yadayim, you don't make the bracha first and wash your hands after, because you don't want to make a bracha with dirty hands.  But in order to preserve the order of first a bracha and then an action, it is preferable to dry your hands /after/ saying the bracha.  But if  you have nothing to dry your hands on, then there is no action to perform.

As far as I know, and have always been taught, when one pours water for
the last time on the left hand one keeps a little water cupped in the hand,
says the bracha, and then rubs the hands over each other, and this shifshuf
is the last part of the mitzvah.  *Then* one dries them, because eating
bread with wet hands is disgusting, and is as if one is eating tamei bread
(IIRC this is a gemara in Sotah, quoting a pasuk).   I haven't had a chance
to look up the sources on this yet, but that's how I was taught and have
always seen others do.

-- 
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