The Upsherin Haircut on Lag BOmer: A Beginners Guide

by Rabbi David

Again. Killing a decent hairdo to ensure the girls wills stay away till their ready for a Shidduch.

Lag BOmer has many beautiful traditions. One that has been adopted by many communities is the Upsherin. Based on the tradition of Isaac Luria, the Sephardic community calls it a Chalakeh. Which cannot be pronounced in English.

In much Chassidic tradition, the first haircut of a child is done once he reaches three. Many save the date of the haircut for Lag BOmer, so that the child will hate this day forever. Upsherin, meaning 'to shear off,' is the term for this tradition as we view young boys as livestock.
The tradition is to make the three-year-old child cry in front of all the onlookers. This is effectively done by having the whole community stand there while the young boy sees scissors, or two huge sharp knives, coming at his face for the first time. This first time experience of sharp pointy metal going for the skull of the child ensures that the child will shed tears and not complain about his long hair for the next three years.
The day of Lag BOmer is one of Simcha, and nothing brings more joy to the Jewish people than seeing a young boy cry. The community sees it as very cute.

Some irresponsible communities have individual members of the community each cutting a lock of hair. Seeing more individuals with scissors teaches the child to be scared of community members. This will help him if he ever becomes a rabbi.
This is where the tradition of shaving the head that many Chassidic communities have comes from. Firstly, these non-barbers have no idea what the size of a lock is. It's very complicated to figure out a lock. It's a feeling. After many cases of messed up hairdos and random locks sticking out of children who just got dressed in a suit for the first time, the rebbes came up with a tradition to get rid of all the hair. Shloimy would take one lock, Yankel another, Feivel another. Next thing you know you have a kid walking around looking like a clown. Thus, most Chassidim now shave the hair and leave Payis. It made this whole tradition much easier to explain to the wives who were shocked when their husbands brought their beautiful children home looking like homeless drug addicts with a butchered head.
One child who had no idea why there were so many people taking locks off his head offered some of the Kehillah members a rabbit's foot.

Along with the Upsherin the boy begins his education. Letters of the Torah are covered in honey and the boy reads the letters while licking the honey off them. The rabbis figured that if the child can pull this feat, learning without being forced to eat the page will be easy task, setting the child up for success. This is why many religious Israelis have a lisp. It's very hard to pronounce letters while licking them.
While this is done, some kids sing 'Torah Tziva Lanu Moshe...' 'The Torah that Moshe commanded to us, a heritage of the Kehilah of Yaakov' (Devarim 33:4). This helps take the kids mind off the fact that he is being attacked and allows him to question where the Mitzvah comes from to ruin a child's hair.

Some donate the hair for wigs, as long as it was not used for idol worship. Others weigh the hair and give charity in the amount that it is weighed. At the Upsherin I was at, they weighed the hair in kilos and gave that many Agurot. One fool suggested they weigh in ounces and give shekels. That fool was ostracized. The charity for hair tradition that some began has also led to people leaving longer Payis.

Skver, Chernobul and Gur perform the Upsherin at two years of age. The tradition of two comes from when Yitzchak was weaned. They found a way to give less money to Tzedakah. That extra year of non-grown hair saves the people money.
Some Sephardic do the Chalakeh at age five. They don't know about the tradition to give charity.

Many go to Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai's Kever in Meron for the Upsherin and Chalakeh on Lag BOmer to get the free haircut. Now, many also practice this at Rabbi Akiva's Kever in Tiberias or Shimon HaTzadik's grave in Yerushalayim. After many years of traveling to Meron, they realized that they were losing money on the gas. It killed the whole free haircut idea.

Many connect the tradition to Orlah. For the first three years one may not eat of a new tree. They compare the kid to a tree that bears fruit. Now the child is ready to give, to practice Mitzvot. At least they can start picking up their Lego.