upsherin question | Imamother

amother

Mon, Apr 23 2007, 4:26 pm

Due to some scheduling conflicts, we may have to have my son's upsehrin about 1 1/2 weeks after his birthday. Is it ok to have the upsherin so much after a boy's birthday or must it be done on that day? (We have no family minhagim regarding an upsehrin since dh and I are both BT's and he is our 1st son!) Thanks!

NotInNJMommy

Mon, Apr 23 2007, 4:40 pm

I'm not sure what you specifically should do, but I know people who "cut" the payos (in our community the men only keep shorter payos) and gave the boy his yarmulke and tzitzis on his bday, and had the big party and the rest of the hair cut at the later date. In their cases, I know they checked with a rav to see if postponing the rest of the event was ok for their particular reasons, whatever they were.

mimivan

Mon, Apr 23 2007, 4:40 pm

In my opinion, it's best to ask a rav...

amother

Mon, Apr 23 2007, 4:40 pm

Considering the fact that so many people have minhagim to cut only on Lag B'omer and therefore can cut up to 6 months before or 6 months afterwards a couple of weeks probably isn't a prblem since the whole upsherin thing is only a minhag anyway so since you have none you didn't necessarily have to wait. Like everyting else discussit iwth your Rov and see what he says.

shalhevet

Mon, Apr 23 2007, 5:30 pm

There are no halochos with regard to upsherin so if you have no family minhag, do what you like!

Our rav says that cutting before the 3rd birthday defeats the purpose since the whole idea is to do it when the boy is three.

You can give your son his tzitzis and kippa on his birthday and wait to cut his hair until it's convenient.

Raisin

Mon, Apr 23 2007, 5:55 pm

Are there really people who only cut on Lag Be'omer? I never heard of that.

Neither of my sons will have had their obsher on their 3rd b/day. my older son's birthday was on Shabbos, and my younger son's was the day after Pesach, so it will be on Lag Be'omer.

su7kids

Mon, Apr 23 2007, 6:00 pm

Ask your Rav for your own minhag.

My son's birthday was on Rosh Hashana, first day of a 3 day Yom Tov, so he got his tzitzis on that day, but he only had his hair cut about 4 days later.

Same with the Omer, we don't do an Upsherenish during the Omer except Lag B'Omer. In fact, even some people who have the minhag NOT to cut hair on Lag B'Omer, will do an upsherenish on Lag B'Omer.

amother

Thu, Apr 26 2007, 4:10 am

Yes, and it goes by the 6-month rule. So therefore my DS's gannenet will make her son's upsherin next Lag B'Omer since his brithday is Chanukah time. We don't have this minhag but had made a neder so I am very glad that DS's birthdya is less than a month after Lag B'Omer.

shopaholic

Thu, Apr 26 2007, 11:46 am

Nearly 17 years ago my brother had his upshern. We were staying with my grandparents out of town for the summer so my mother had my grandfather & the Rav of his shul cut a bit of hair after Shacharis on his birthday & we had a little (kiddush).. Then 3 weeks later, my father joined us & we had the big mega celebration in conjunction with my Bas Mitzvah. His was the 1st upshern & mine was the 1st Bas Mitzvah so it was exciting.