Since I moved back to Baltimore nine years ago, I’ve met several skilled sheitel machers, and one of them gives me a great haircut. Women have no halacha to follow on how their hair should be cut, but what about boys and men? Rabbi Avrohom Kaufman, who lives in Kiryat Sefer, recently visited his parents, Evelyn and Dovid Shnier, in Baltimore and brought along a book on men’s hair cutting, Tispores K’Halacha, by the Rabbanim of the Kashrus Organization of Halachic Haircutting, which he is in the process of translating into English, under the title The Kosher Haircut.
From the time a Jewish boy gets his first haircut, whether
at three years old, if that’s his family’s minhag,
or before, everyone who cuts his hair knows to leave the pei’os. However, according to Rabbi Kaufman, there’s more to this
mitzva, which he explained in a webinar at the Star-K on Monday, February 23.
He also spoke about kosher haircuts with students at TA, and he shared the book
privately with Rav Moshe Heinemann, Rabbinic Administrator of the Star-K.
At the Star-K webinar, Rabbi Zvi Goldberg, Kashrus
Administrator, and Rabbi Mordechai Frankel, Director of the Institute of
Halacha, welcomed the visiting rabbi. Rabbi Goldberg introduced Rabbi Kaufman
as a talmid chacham as well as a barber. As host of the webinar, Rabbi Goldberg
asked his guest, who learns in a kollel in Israel, to share how he became a
barber.
Rabbi Kaufman said that when he was in yeshiva, he didn’t
cut hair as some other yeshiva bachurim
did. After he was married, he started cutting a friend’s hair regularly. He
didn’t consider himself a barber until one night at 11 o’clock, there was a
knock at his door. A man he didn’t know asked him to cut his hair. “I’m not a
barber,” said Rabbi Kaufman. “You must mean the barber on the fourth floor.”
“I want you to
cut my hair,” said the man. Rabbi Kaufman repeated that the barber lives
upstairs. The man offered to pay double, but Rabbi Kaufman insisted that he
wasn’t a barber. “They won’t let me come back home until I get a haircut,” said
the man. So Rabbi Kaufman cut the man’s hair. Then he thought, “I guess I’m a
barber.” That was 15 years ago; he never saw that man again.
The book Tispores
K’Halacha, whose author Rabbi Kaufman knows well, explains and illustrates
how to properly cut a Jewish male’s hair. “The purpose of the book isn’t for
profit but to disseminate the halachos,” said Rabbi Kaufman. He stressed that
all the efforts to promote this sefer would be worthwhile if even one
man gets a proper kosher haircut.
The book encourages anyone involved in cutting a male’s
hair – including barbers, yeshiva students, mothers cutting their son’s hair, and
even a man himself – to be careful of the sides of the face known as the pei’os harosh. The book beautifully
illustrates this area. During the webinar, Rabbi Kaufman asked Rabbi Goldberg
to post a picture of the pei’os harosh
from the book.
Also, from the book, Rabbi Goldberg showed a color drawing
of a monk with hair only on the top of his head as if a bowl were put there as
a guide for cutting. In the left-hand corner of that picture is a message from
the Rambam that Jewish boys and men shouldn’t have their hair rounded off at
the edges of the head because we are not supposed to look like idol worshipers.
Rabbi Kaufman, describes the sefer as “user and kid friendly.” When he finishes translating it
into English and the book is published, he hopes to share copies with the
Star-K.
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When I interviewed Rabbi Goldberg, he described the
presentation as “fantastic.” He said, “Anyone can pick up a pair of scissors
and be a barber, but how do you know if you’re doing it right?” He added that
not much has been written about this topic. “It is good to bring the knowledge
to the public,” said Rabbi Goldberg. “It was explained well, by a Baltimore boy
who speaks our language.”
Every time Rabbi Kaufman visits Baltimore, he speaks to the
eighth-grade boys at TA, which he attended as a student the first year that
Rabbi Spero taught there. This time, Rabbi Spero asked him to speak about
kosher haircuts to the boys in the middle school as well as the high school.
“The boys were very inquisitive,” said Rabbi Kaufman. “I answered dozens of
questions and had to cut it short due to time constraints.”
In a phone interview, I asked Rabbi Heinemann for his
opinion of the book. “There’s a good reason for this book,” the Rav said,
explaining that how to take a shave and a haircut have halachic parameters,
just as there are parameters on not taking interest on loans, on what we eat,
and on anything in life. “This world doesn’t belong to us, only as much as the
Ribono Shel Olam gives us,” said the Rav.
Rabbi Heinemann said he doesn’t encourage anyone to become
a barber because there are so many questions to answer. As for the book, The Kosher Haircut, Rabbi Heinemann said
that it gives “a lot of good information.” He might disagree on one or two
points, he said, because it’s common in Jewish law to sometimes have
differences of opinion. “Most of the points, I agree with,” he stated. “Any book that helps people keep Torah is worthwhile.”
At the end of the Star-K webinar, shaving beards was
mentioned. Rabbi Kaufman said, “The rabbanim in Israel almost unanimously hold
that the use of any electric shavers is forbidden on the face.”
Rabbi Frankel said that, in America, we follow Rabbi Moshe
Feinstein, zt”l, who held that
certain electric razors may be used on beards. “We’re fortunate to have Rabbi
Heinemann, who was with Rabbi Moshe when he okayed electric razors if they were
not sharp (such as the Braun),” said Rabbi Frankel. As for using others
that are sharp, Rabbi Frankel said that the three blades can be removed and
kashered by scraping them. Rabbi Kaufman helped Rabbi Frankel by removing and
showing one of the round blades of an electric razor that could be dulled. Then
he added that a shaver’s blades can be exchanged for others that are less
sharp.
“We could do a follow-up on shaving,” suggested Rabbi
Kaufman, and he smiled.
Rabbi Kaufman offered to answer questions via his email at
AvromiKaufman@gmail.com. The Star-K webinar on The Kosher Haircut can be seen
at https://www.star-k.org/videoschannel=1826929.
