Life-cycle events: education for a Torah based life

Much is said in our communities regarding what are termed life-cycle events. The key smachot are the brit, bar/bat mitzvah and of course the wedding – with all its associated celebrations. Of course, there are other life-cycle events related to end of life but I am only concentrating on matters of simcha.

However while those events generally mentioned are those listed above there are at least three others intrinsic to contemporary Orthodox Jewish life 

The first of these is the opsherin (or opshernish) actually a Yiddish term literally meaning the cutting off. It is the climax of a tradition where a boy’s hair is left uncut until his third birthday, marked by a celebratory first haircut ceremony. It signifies the transition from babyhood to formal Torah education and the beginning of observing mitzvot like wearing a kippah and tzitzit. 

That haircut actually involves transforming what might be viewed as an unremarkable action to one in fulfilment of a Torah commandment.

The law of peyot (sidelocks or side curls) comes from Vayikra 19:27, which states: “You shall not round off the side-growth of your heads.” Accordingly already at this first haircut the boy’s hair is styled in fulfilment of this law to ensure a Jewish appearance. Whilst certain chassidic and also Sefardic/Yemenite communities take this to forbid any cutting of the relevant sidelocks so that one develops long peyot as seen in some communities, the basic law as per the Talmud (Makkot 20a) explains that the “edges” or “corners” refer to the hair between the temples and the ears, simply prohibiting the complete removal or
high rounding of sideburns.