Upsherin

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Upsherin celebration by Rabbi Eliezer Shlomo Schick
Upsherin, 1992
Upsherin, 1992
Upsherin, 1992
Upsherin, 1992

Upsherin, Upsheren,

Judeo-Arabic: חלאקה, romanized: ḥalāqa[2]) is a first haircut ceremony observed by a wide cross-section of Jews and is particularly popular in Haredi Judaism. It is typically held when a boy
turns three years old.

Background

The upsherin tradition is a relatively modern custom in Judaism and has only become a popular practice since the 17th century.[citation needed]

Yoram Bilu, a professor of anthropology and psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, suggests that there is little or no religious basis for the custom and its popularity is probably mainly social. The following are some quotes from his paper,

Two disparate hair-related practices appear to have converged in the haircutting ritual: the growing of ear-locks payoth – s.d.] and the shearing of the head hair. ... Ritual haircut, probably modeled on the Muslim custom of shaving male children's hair in saints' sanctuaries, was practiced by native Israeli Jews (Musta'arbim) as early as the Middle Ages. Rabbi Isaac Luria Ashkenazi, the 16th-century founder of the celebrated Lurianic School of Kabbalah who assigned special mystical value to the ear-locks, was instrumental in constituting the ritual in its present form. The ritual remained primarily a Sephardi custom following Luria, but in the last 200 years it became widespread among East European Hasidim. From Palestine it spread to the Diaspora communities, where it was usually celebrated in a more modest family setting.[3]

Tarbiẕ 22 (1951), is that many sources cite that Luria held one should not cut one's hair for the entire sefirah
– including Lag BaOmer, (see Shaarei Teshuva, O.C. 493, 8).

We know from travellers that by the 18th and 19th centuries, the

Sephardi
Jews of Israel were participating in this "insanity," with "drinking and dancing and fires."

A Hasidic rebbe, Yehudah Leibush Horenstein, who emigrated to Israel in the middle of the 19th Century, writes that "this haircut, called halaqe, is done by the Sephardim in

Beit Midrash
and perform the haircut with great celebration and parties, something unknown to the Jews in Europe."

Customs

In the

yarmulke and tzitzis will now be worn, and the child will be taught to pray and read the Hebrew alphabet. So that Torah should be "sweet on the tongue," the Hebrew letters are covered with honey, and the children lick them as they read.[4]

Sometimes the hair that is cut off in the upsherin ceremony is weighed, and charity is given in that amount. If the hair is long enough, it may be donated to a charity that makes wigs for cancer patients.[5]

Other customs include having each of those attending the ceremony snip off a lock of hair, and encouraging the child to put a penny in a

Deut
33:4).

Among some Hasidic sects, such as

Gur, the upsherin is held at age two.[6] This custom is based on the tradition that Abraham celebrated his son Isaac's second birthday, hinted at in the Biblical verse: "The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast." (Genesis 21:8) Among some sephardic communities, particularly in Jerusalem, the practice (known to them as "chalaka") is performed at age five.[7]

Lag BaOmer upsherins

A rabbi performs the traditional first haircut on a three-year-old boy in Meron on Lag BaOmer 1970.
Main article: Lag BaOmer

Cutting hair is not allowed during the time of the

Pesach and Lag BaOmer celebrate upsherin on this date. It is customary that at the Lag BaOmer celebrations by the tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in Meron, Israel, boys are given their first haircuts while their parents distribute wine and sweets. Similar upsherin celebrations are simultaneously held in Jerusalem at the grave of Shimon Hatzaddik for Jerusalemites who cannot travel to Meron.[8]

In 1983 Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Horowitz, the second Bostoner Rebbe, reinstated a century-old tradition among Bostoner Hasidim to light a bonfire and conduct upsherins near the grave of Rabbi Akiva in Tiberias on Lag BaOmer night. The tradition had been abandoned due to murderous attacks on sojourners to that relatively isolated place.[9]

Hasidic interpretation toward Biblical allusion

In the Bible, human life is sometimes compared to the growth of trees.

not permitted to eat the fruit that grows on a tree for the first three years. Some Jews apply this principle to cutting a child's hair. Thus little boys are not given their first haircut until the age of three. To continue the analogy, it is hoped that the child, like a tree that grows tall and eventually produces fruit, will grow in knowledge and good deeds, and someday have a family of his own. Hasidic Rabbis have made this comparison, and in some communities a boy before his first haircut is referred to as orlah
, as we refer to a tree in its early years.

Chabad Hasidim have another explanation.[11]

For the first three years of life, a child absorbs the surrounding sights and sounds and the parents' loving care. The child is a receiver, not yet ready to give. At the age of three, children’s education takes a leap—they are now ready to produce and share their unique gifts."

See also

Notes

  1. ISBN 0922613370
    .
  2. ^ Shem Tob Gaguine, Keter Shem Tob vol. 2, p. 591.
  3. ^ "From Milah (Circumcision) to Milah (Word): Male Identity and Rituals of Childhood in the Jewish Ultraorthodox Community" (Ethos 31 (2): 172–203 published by the American Anthropological Association in 2003)
  4. ^ Haqoton, Reb Chaim (13 May 2006). "Sweet Transformation". Reb Chaim HaQoton – ר' חיים הקטן. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
  5. ^ "Lev Malka Calls on the Tzibur to Donate Hair for Children". TheYeshivaWorld.com. 25 April 2013.
  6. ^ "נטעי גבריאל – תגלחת הילדים הולכתם לחדר וסעודת החומש – צינר, גבריאל (page 35 of 200)". hebrewbooks.org. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
  7. ^ "At Three years Old – The primary purpose of the hair cutting is for the intention of leaving and essentially revealing the Peyot/sidelocks". chabad.org. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
  8. ^ Rossoff, Dovid. "Meron on Lag B'Omer". The Jewish Magazine. Retrieved 28 April 2010.
  9. ^ Horowitz, Y. F. and Morgenstern, Ashira (24 November 2010). "Seasons: The Bostoner Rebbetzin remembers and reflects on the occasion of the first yahrtzeit of Grand Rabbi Levi Yitzchak HaLevi Horowitz, ztz"l, 18 Kislev 5771". Mishpacha, Family First supplement, p. 52.
  10. Deuteronomy 20:19, Isaiah 65:22, Jeremiah
    17:8
  11. ^ "The Basics of the Upsherin - A Boy's First Haircut". chabad.org. Retrieved 4 July 2019.

External links

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