[Avodah] Why are beards considers so choshuv?

[hankman]

See the Sh"uT of the Tsemach Tsedek YD siman 93 where he discusses at length the various sources for not shaving (I did not go through the teshuva in detail). At the end of the teshuva he concludes: In the days of Dovid Hamelech they were nohaig not to shave at all, from which he concludes that the reason probably was some of the several issurim he discussed before but which he does not identify further. He then quotes the Radak that it was a minhag avosainu from the time of kabolas hatorah until now, not to shave even with scissors. He ends by saying that it [shaving] was considered to be a "cherpo gedola," a great shame. Unfortunately he does not explain why.

Many of the teshuvos also mention the Be'er Haitav,  Ar"i and the mekubalim about not shaving.

Unfortunately none of this really answers the question of the reason for the chashivus of the zakain.

Also now that I have looked into this a little, I was disappointed that I did not find the svara I proposed in my previous post mentioned by anyone I looked at.

Kol Tuv

Chaim Manaster
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