[Avodah] Pushing Off the Upsherin

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Nov 15, 2020 at 04:05:29PM +0000, Prof. L. Levine via Avodah wrote:
> I have to presume that this woman is not aware of the problems with
> the practice of not cutting a boy's hair until age 3. From
> https://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/shorshei_hair_cutting.pdf

Or, she knows her own posqim looked into the issue is an do not believe
the problems are real, or do not rise to a level to prohibit upsherin.

There a numerous posqim other than those of Machon Moreshes Ashkenaz,
and this mother has no obligation to accept another's community's posqim
and minhagim, just because you prefer them.

There are arguments similar to the one you give about the origins of
such minhagim as wearing costumes on Purim, which is originally an
Italian minhag, and their neighbors were celebrating Carnivale around
the same of year, as it marks the start of Lent. time as Carnivale. Or
milchigs on Shavous, originating in Germany, where the neighbors had a
holiday named Wittesmontag, a milk and cheese festival the Monday before
their Pentecost.

Either
1- You trust that our and Christian custom have a perfectly secular
   source, or
2- You hold that derekh emori can be buried under a sufficiently
   compelling symbolic tie to something mesoeratic, or
3- You just ignore such speculations, believing that Minhag Yisrael is
   protected from such influsences siyata diShmaya, and the researcher
   must be in error.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 We are what we repeatedly do.
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   Thus excellence is not an event,
Author: Widen Your Tent      but a habit.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                 - Aristotle