Upsherin

Upsherin, Upsheren, Opsherin or Upsherinish (Yiddish: אפשערן, lit. "shear off", Judaeo-Arabic: חלאקה, ''ḥalāqah'') is a haircutting ceremony observed by a wide cross-section of Jews and is particularly popular in Haredi Jewish communities. It is typically held when a boy turns three years old. Among those who practice the upsherin, the male infant does not have his hair cut until this ceremony.

Background

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

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 Palestinian Jews ( Musta'arabi 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.

Rabbi Chaim Vital wrote in Sha'ar Ha-Kavanot that "Isaac Luria, cut his son's hair on Lag BaOmer, according to the well-known custom." However, the age of his son is not mentioned. An obvious problem raised by Avraham Yaari, in an article in ''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 ''hilula'' at Meron on Lag BaOmer with bonfires and the cutting of children's hair had by then become an affair of the masses. A well-known Talmud scholar from Bulgaria, Rabbi Abraham ben Israel Rosanes, wrote that, in his visit to Palestine in 1867, he saw an Ashkenazi Jew giving his son a haircut at the hilula. Rosanes says that he could not restrain himself, and went to the Jew and tried to dissuade him, yet was unsuccessful; he also complained that most of the Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews of Israel were participating in this "insanity," with "drinking and dancing and fires."

A Hasidic rebbe, Rabbi Yehudah Leibush Horenstein, who emigrated to Palestine in the middle of the 19th century, writes that "this haircut, called ''halaqe'', is done by the Sephardim in Jerusalem at the tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai during the summer, but during the winter they take the boy to the synagogue or Beit Midrash and perform the haircut with great celebration and parties, something unknown to the Jews in Europe."

Customs

In the Hasidic community, the ''upsherin'' marks a male child's entry into the formal educational system and the commencement of Torah study. A 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.

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.

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 tzedakah box for each lock as it is cut. Sometimes the child sings a Hebrew song based on the Biblical verse: "Torah tzivah lanu Moshe, morashah kehilat Yaakov" Moses_commanded_the_Torah_to_us,_an_eternal_heritage_for_the_congregation_of_Moses_commanded_the_Torah_to_us,_an_eternal_heritage_for_the_congregation_of_Jacob">Moses.html"_;"title="Moses">Moses_commanded_the_Torah_to_us,_an_eternal_heritage_for_the_congregation_of_Moses_commanded_the_Torah_to_us,_an_eternal_heritage_for_the_congregation_of_Jacob">Moses.html"_;"title="Moses">Moses_commanded_the_Torah_to_us,_an_eternal_heritage_for_the_congregation_of_Jacob"_(Deuteronomy">Deut_Deut_may_refer_to:

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