at the Western Wall with Reb Gutman Locks on Mystical Paths

     There is a tradition not to cut a Jewish boy’s hair until his 3^rd birthday. The source is attributed to the Torah likening man to a tree in the field, and just as we do not shear the fruit of a tree for its first three years, so too, the custom is not to cut a boy’s hair until his third birthday.

There is a joyful celebration that accompanies the snipping off of some of his locks that is called the upsherin (Yiddish: shearing off). The day marks his moving from being a baby to being a young boy, and, most important, at this time his formal Torah education begins.