We wash our hands in a ritual manner before eating bread. The Shulchan Aruch calls for similar washing of the hands before eating any food that is wet (like a pickle).
In this miniseries, we will survey the reasons for this ritual washing and the opinions of the principal poskim regarding its obligatory status.
Is this ritual washing really required? Is it only a minhag that can be set aside? Is it a commendable strict practice above and beyond the requirements of halacha?
A source sheet is available through the links in both WORD format and pdf. In class we will translate and explain the sources.