Beards
JLevitow@aol.com
Fri, 21 Nov 1997 17:54:17 -0500 (EST)
Greetings! I wonder if anyone is interested in returning to the
question of beards. My question arises from the fact that I came to serious
religion as a grown up rather than as a child in "cheder," and so I have
some big blank spots in my learning. I have studied only with men with
beards and yes, black hats, too, and I will not attempt to conceal that
these persons were in fact Lubavitchers. The rabbi said one day, "A man
should have a beard," and in a "ma'amar" I read by the previous Lubavitcher
Rebbe a"h (not the last one but the one before), he says that there are
five different places where shaving is prohibited. He does not list them.
Now, I am well aware that many frum people do in fact shave. My Ganzfried
Kitzur Shulchan Aruch says (Yoreh De'ah 170:2): "Payot hazaken lo asrah
torah lehashchit ele bato'ar, vehapayot hayn hamesh, verabu bahen hadayot"
-- "The Torah only prohibits removing the corners of the beard with a
razor, and there are five corners, and there are many opinions about them."
Whether or not to shave is a big question for me now, and I don't have the
background to decide what to do, so anyone who could fill me in on the
basics would be doing a big mitzvah. Does the Gemara discuss this? Later
commentaries? What are mainstream frum, non-Hasidic people taught about
shaving? E-mail me directly if you like. I can handle Hebrew, and I am
looking for any or all Halachic references you can provide. Thank you very
much.
Jon L