First Haircut - Upsherenish

Today's Torah message is dedicated to our very own Yisrolik Levin. As he is turning 3 years old today he is celebrating his first haircut.

The Torah compares man to a tree.There is a prohibition against benefiting from the fruits that grow in the first three years of a tree's life. In the fourth year, the happy farmer, takes his harvest to Jerusalem, to partake of it in an environment of holiness. Similarly, In the first three years of a child’s life, there are no edible fruits no tangible returns for a parent’s endeavors. During the fourth year however, there are harvests of holiness; the first fruits of the child’s education are seen. A child's third birthday signals a major transition in his education.

For a Jewish boy, this transition is marked with a ceremony. It is an age-old custom to allow a boy's hair to grow untouched until he's three years old. On his third Jewish birthday, friends are invited to a haircutting ceremony—an upsherin in Yiddish, called a chalakah by Sephardic Jews. The child's peyot, the distinctively Jewish side curls, are left intact; the initiation into his first mitzvah.

The child is taught to wear a kipah and tzitzit, and is slowly trained to recite blessings and the Shema. The world now begins to benefit from the Torah study and mitzvot of this young child.

The very first value we wish to teach our children is the importance of a fierce pride in their beautiful and unique heritage. We are different and unique. We are privileged to be G-d's "ambassadors of light" to a dark and difficult world. We are thankful that we are the Chosen People.

We thus tell the child, "You are yet young and have much to learn. But the first lesson we wish to teach you is that you are a Jew and must never be embarrassed to act and dress as a Jew. Your nation has the most glorious history, and an even more magnificent future awaits our people with the coming of the Moshiach. Come what may, always be a proud Jew!"

Wishing Yisrolik and his entire family many blessings and may we all be so proud of him.