Chalake at Age Three - A Custom or an Obligation?

Greetings,

1. It is the custom of chasidim and men of action to wait before cutting their sons’ hair until they are three years old, as written in Responsa Arugat HaBosem (part Orach Chaim, siman 210). However, there is no obligation to do so.

2. The meaning of waiting until the age of three years is, as written there in Arugat HaBosem, that there is support for this custom from what is said in the Midrash Yalkut, Parashat Kedoshim, on the verse, And when you shall plant any tree for food, then you shall count its fruit as forbidden, the verse is speaking about a child: three years it shall be for you uncircumcised, that he is unable either to remain silent or to speak, and in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy, that his father educates him for Torah, hillulim, praising Hashem, and from here also for the matter of the mitzvah of chinuch in leaving the peot, etc. See there. And see also Responsa Vayeshev HaYam, part 3 (siman 29).

With blessings,

Hillel Meirs