Local opinion: Goodbye curls, hello kippah

Our family has become accustomed to hearing comments about our youngest child when we’re out and about. “Oh, she’s so cute!” or “She has such beautiful hair!”

We’ll usually just smile and say thank you. On occasion, we will gently note that our youngest child, Tzvi, is a boy.

What throws people off is his long curly hair with blond strands. And Tzvi’s favorite color is pink, and he had a phase where he would hold a rectangular piece of Lego in that color, which he called his phone.

But in behavior and affect, he is all boy. His latest persona is “Agent Emes,” an observant Jewish spy of the James Bond ilk. Tzvi wears a black Chassidic fedora and throws it like a Frisbee across the room, replicating Agent Emes battling Dr. Evil in his films.

Many people wonder why we left his hair long during his first years of life. This is for religious reasons — we follow the ancient Jewish custom to give a boy his first haircut at the age of 3, and not before.

So soon, Tzvi will have a more boyish appearance. On his third birthday, we will be cutting his flowing locks in a traditional, yet relatively uncommon ceremony called an Upshernish — Yiddish for “shearing.”

During and after the event, Tzvi will start wearing a kippah (or yarmulke) as a head covering to remind him of the One Above, to Whom we are accountable. He will also wear a biblically mandated garment with strings on its four corners, called tzitzit. He will recite holy verses and distribute coins to encourage people to donate to charity and be kind.

When we sent out invitations for the event, one friend replied: “I will be there, but I will be super sad that this boy’s hair is getting cut! I suppose G-d forgot that when hair is that curly and adorable, the haircut should wait until high school ...”

It reminded me of an old joke. A teenager once asked his father for a car. “If you raise your grades, study more Torah, and get a haircut, I’ll get you one,” the father replied. A few weeks later, the son returned with better grades and visible signs of spiritual growth, but his long hair remained unchanged. When his father asked why, the boy said, “Well, I saw that Moses had long hair. So did Samson. Even Joseph had long hair.” Without hesitation, the father responded, “True, and they traveled by foot or donkey.”

From an early age, we hope to teach Tzvi that he can be a light unto others. During the event, we will carefully tie most of his hair into a ponytail and cut it off as one, leaving the rest of his hair for others to cut. We will do that so we can donate his bundle of hair to an organization that creates wigs for children battling cancer in Israel.

As Tzvi takes his first steps into Jewish boyhood, we hope he carries with him both the traditions of our ancestors and also the values of kindness, purpose, and pride in who he is. And with a haircut, that spy fedora he so loves to wear might just sit a little better on his head.