[Avodah] Support?

[Ben Bradley via Avodah]

> Reuvain quickly gets up and walks to her and hugs her to comfort her
> and keep her upright. As he does so, he realizes she did not make any
> request or action alluding to any need prior to his action, but she
> did seem to very much appreciate it. She also belonged to the portion
> of the community which did not presume a social negiah restriction. Was
> Reuvain's action preferred, acceptable, or prohibited? If not preferred,
> what should he have done?

I'd vote for preferred. Sevara would be that negia is assur derech chiba,
and the question through the poskim is what consitutes derech chiba. The
fairly consistent answer is to include any contact in any social situation
in addition to more obvious situations of derech chiba. The situations
fairly consistently not included are professional scenarios where your
mind is presumed to be solely on the job eg doctors, nurses, physical
therapists etc. Then we have indviduals who can rely on themselves to
have their mind lshem shamayim like the amora who lifted kallas on his
shoulders. The gemara says there that even in his generation he was
unique in being able to rely on himself to have his mind only lshem
shamayim for this situation.

But the consistent point is the when you can be objectively certain
enough that a given situation will not cause hirhurei aveira then there
is no issur of negia.

I'd have thought the example above would fit that. And preferred rather
than acceptable because if I'm right in sevara then the weight of the
need to comfort the bereaved in such a fashion would make physical
contact the preferred option.

Ben