The Upshernish: A Celebratory Haircut Connecting Father to Son, Teacher to Student
In his three years of life, Yechiel Zeev Mergui’s mocha-colored hair had never met a scissor’s blades. The untouched strands — uniform in length, not yet growing peyot, or sidelocks — still told the story of when he first entered the world.
On a Sunday afternoon in Forest Hills, Queens, with the last rays of sun scattering through the gray clouds, the Mergui family and their closest friends, family, and Chabad-Lubavitch community members gathered in the ballroom of Young Israel Synagogue at 7100 Yellowstone Boulevard to celebrate Yechiel’s Upshernish, or “hair-cutting” on his third birthday, according to the Hebrew calendar. With this ceremonial haircut, his peyot would now be visibly distinct from the rest of his hair.
Peyot represent maturing of a Jewish male’s religious education — similar to fruits growing on a tree. Just like a tree is bare of fruits in its first three years, so too is a Jewish child who has not yet begun their formal education. TheTorah compares man to a tree, often comparing trees to Jewish education. Yechiel’s mother designed the centerpieces of each table to resemble a tree on top of emerald tablecloths where white plates adorned with golden accents were neatly placed at each seat– emerald and gold, the two prominent colors splashed throughout the room’s decor.
Greetings of “Shalom” and “Mazel Tov” echo throughout the room as guests begin to stream into the ballroom to enjoy each other’s company and await the coming-of-age ritual that so many Jewish boys have observed. The celebration has all the trappings of any young child’s dream birthday party; a coloring station, children running all around, and a table filled with sweets.
Before the Upshernish began, the men joined in their daily afternoon prayer. Promptly, after the prayer concluded, the guests began to fill their plates with fresh bread, pita, hummus, pasta, salmon— a decadent spread of choices for those lining the buffet. As stomachs began to fill over the course of socializing, and trips for seconds became less frequent, the event began with a blessing.
A long table sat facing the guests where Yechiel’s father, Rabbi Mergui, and grandfather sat. His mother gathered her son and placed him in a chair behind the table.
Rabbi Mergui’s parents traveled from France to witness this ceremony. Now that Yechiel had entered his fourth year, like a tree, his fruit was ready to be collected. Each strand cut is a collection of these fruits.
First to cut his hair was his grandfather. While Rabbi Mergui held the piece, his own father slowly cut the first strand from the back of his son’s head. There was nothing hurried in his movement; every second seemed to be filled with intention. Rabbi Mergui cut the next piece from Yechiel’s head. For a moment, the line between grandfather and grandson, father and son, Rabbi and student seemed to blur.
“My father is a father, so he has the first honor to cut,” the Rabbi later said. “After that — myself.”
Family and friends were called up one by one to cut Yechiel’s hair, as the boy tended to his piece of chocolate cake.
Rabbi Mergui sees this event as a finale to his son's last three years, but also as the end of a cycle for the world. He draws this parallel as Yechiel was born around the time that the coronavirus began.
Drawing the Iconostasis: A Teaching Moment for a Russian Orthodox Sunday School Class
A brief and sparsely attended English-language service had just ended at the Saint Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral, and the larger Sunday service wouldn’t begin for another hour. The cathedral, located at 15 E. 97th Street, was dimly lit and somber as a few remaining worshipers from the morning service roamed the room, silently placing candles as offerings and leaning in to kiss the icons paneling the walls.
The center of the room was nearly empty. This church has no pews; instead, its parishioners stand scattered throughout the room, facing the altar. Wooden benches line the room’s perimeter, allowing older congregants to take a break when they need. The nave, where the congregation stands, is richly adorned: icons and intricate patterns cover every inch of the walls and high, domed ceiling. Many of the icons, within their wooden frames, are covered in diamonds and strands of pearls. The iconostasis, a partition at the front of the room that separates the nave from the sanctuary, is covered in gold.
In such a setting, the two empty gray plastic benches in the center of the room looked out of place, a better fit for a high school cafeteria than a place of worship.
Suddenly, the reason for the benches became clear. A Sunday school class, with students of all ages, emerged out of a side door, holding pencils and paper and buzzing with energy, even as their teacher tried to keep them in line. They kneeled at the benches, using them as desks, gazing up at the altar and the iconostasis with their faces lit by the candlelight. With whispered words of guidance—in Russian—from their teacher, each began to draw this ornate partition.
The iconostasis, most important architectural feature of Orthodox churches, separates the sanctuary—where communion is prepared—from the nave. In early Christian times, the screen restricted access to the sanctuary for the secular without hiding it completely from congregants’ eyes. The Eucharist, or communion, is central to Orthodox worship, which is why congregants look toward the place where bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus. At Saint Nicholas, the nave is dimly lit, except for worshipers’ candles, while the sanctuary is brighter, but only partially visible.
The teacher gave the children room to focus on what stood out to them. Some drew from the ground up, gripping pencils tightly as they outlined the three steps leading to the altar. (The teacher helped one boy draw the steps in straight lines.) Others focused on the painted icons covering the closed golden gates, the “holy doors” through which only priests and deacons may pass. One girl, who spotted a priest preparing for the next service, waved her drawing so that he could see its progress. He gave her a furtive wave, his smile at odds with the solemnity of his long black cloak.
One girl, about 13, separated from the group and faced the back of the church, where she could get a better look at a large icon of Jesus hanging over the door. She was intensely focused on her drawing, leaning on her raised leg, and didn’t notice a worshiper take a pause from his movement through the sanctuary to look over her shoulder and up at the icon, appraising her work with a small smile.
Facing the back, she was the first of the children to see worshipers filing in for the morning’s main service, its liturgy in the ancient Church Slavonic language. With more offerings, the candlelight around the room grew brighter. The priests donned their golden robes, and it was time for the children to file out before the gates would open.