The upsherin tradition is a relatively modern custom in Judaism and has only become a popular practice since the 17th century.
Origins and Historical Context
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. According to Bilu:
“Two disparate hair-related practices appear to have converged in the haircutting ritual: the growing of ear-locks (payoth) 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.”
Hayyim ben Joseph Vital wrote in the Gate of Reincarnations 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).
By the 18th and 19th centuries, the Yom Hillula at Meron on Lag BaOmer with bonfires and the cutting of children’s hair had become an affair of the masses. Abraham ben Israel Rosanes, a Talmud scholar from Bulgaria, wrote that during his visit to Palestine in 1867, he saw an Ashkenazi Jew giving his son a haircut at the hilula. Despite Rosanes’ objections, he noted that most Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews in Israel participated in this “insanity,” with “drinking and dancing and fires.”
Customs
In the Hasidic community, the upsherin marks a boy’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. To make Torah “sweet on the tongue,” the Hebrew letters are covered with honey, and the children lick them as they read.
Sometimes the hair 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 attendee 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. The child might also sing 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 Jacob” (Deut 33:4)].
Variations in Practice
Among some Hasidic sects, such as Skver, Chernobyl, and Gur, the upsherin is held at age two, based on the tradition that Abraham celebrated his son Isaac’s second birthday. In some Sephardic communities, particularly in Jerusalem, the practice (known as “chalaka”) is performed at age five.
Lag BaOmer Upsherins
Cutting hair is not allowed during the time of the Counting of the Omer but is permitted on Lag BaOmer. Boys who turn three between 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 receive their first haircuts while their parents distribute wine and sweets. Similar celebrations are held in Jerusalem at the grave of Shimon Hatzaddik for those who cannot travel to Meron.
In 1983, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Horowitz, the second Bostoner Rebbe, reinstated a tradition among Bostoner Hasidim to light a bonfire and conduct upsherins near the grave of Rabbi Akiva in Tiberias on Lag BaOmer night. This tradition had been abandoned due to attacks on sojourners to that isolated place.
Hasidic Interpretation and Biblical Allusion
In the Bible, human life is sometimes compared to the growth of trees. According to Leviticus 19:23, one is 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 offer another explanation: for the first three years of life, a child absorbs the surrounding sights and sounds and the parents’ loving care. At the age of three, children’s education takes a leap—they are now ready to produce and share their unique gifts.