Portrait of a man shaving (modified). Ruslan Solntsev - 123RF
The Prohibition of Shaving in the Torah and Halacha
The Torah prohibits a mourning ritual called tonsuring, i.e., the pulling out or cutting of hair to express sorrow. Rabbinic interpretation understood these verses as a prohibition for men to shave their beards or temples with a razor. Ibn Ezra, however, uncharacteristically rejects the rabbinic interpretation of these verses, and Shadal, who accepts ibn Ezra's reading, goes as far as to say that he himself shaves with a razor.
Published: May 1, 2014
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Last Updated: September 7, 2026
This refers to shaving the area with one side of the scissors instead of cutting the hair with both sides.
The Talmud (b. Kiddushin 35b) spends almost an entire page proving that these laws apply only to men and not women. Although the Rabbis use a number of homiletic devices to prove this, it seems intuitive since, as a general rule (there are always exceptions), women cannot grow beards or sideburns.
Many rabbis nowadays believe that electric razors do not count as razors and are, therefore, permitted. Others allow only some shavers or even just depilating creams or epilators. Finally, it should be noted that in Hasidic communities, the beard and side-locks are not cut at all.
This is only his first suggestion. We will look at his second suggestion at the end of this piece.
ע”ד הפשט: טעם האסור כדי שלא יבטל הסימן שהקב”ה רשם במין הזכר כדי להבדילו ממין הנקבה, כי העושה כן הפך השם הוא עושה, כמי שזורע כלאים, ובכל מה שעשה במעשה בראשית כתב בהם “למינהו”.
א) אין מגלחין פאתי הראש כמו שהיו עושין עובדי כוכבים… ח) דרך כהני עובדי כוכבים היה להשחית זקנם, לפיכך אסרה תורה להשחית הזקן…
Milgrom (ibid) offers a similar analysis on Lev. 19:27:
The hair symbolized the life force of the individual, and locks of hair were laid in tombs or funeral pyres in pre-Islamic Arabia and ancient Syria as well as brought to the sanctuary as dedicatory offerings… In other words, these prohibitions ban idolatrous rites…
See Rashi’s gloss on the mishna about tonsuring (b. Makkot 20a).
לפי שאתם בניו של מקום ואתם ראוין להיות נאים ולא גדודים ומקורחים:
וטעם בנים – אחר שתדעו שאתם בנים לשם והוא אוהב אתכם יותר מהאב לבן, אל תתגודדו על כל מה שיעשה, כי כל אשר יעשה לטוב הוא. ואם לא תבינוהו כאשר לא יבינו הבנים הקטנים מעשה אביהם רק יסמכו עליו, כן תעשו גם אתם, כי עם קדוש אתה, ואינך כשאר כל הכנענים, על כן לא תעשה כמעשיהם.
בנים אתם לא תתגודדו. פי’ רבינו יוסף קרא גוים דינם להתגודד על מת אבל אתם בנים לשם ואפילו אם ימות לכם מת הלא אביכם שבשמים קיים.
The latter half of the verse, which forbids a kohen to grow his hair long and requires tidy haircuts, parallels the rule of the high priest in Lev. 25:10.
If this were Rashbam’s commentary, the interpretation suggested above would be novel but hardly shocking. Rashbam famously believes there is nothing wrong with interpreting a Torah commandment in a way that is contradictory to halacha. Ibn Ezra, however, is explicit in his introduction to his commentary on the Torah that this kind of interpretation is illegitimate. For a detailed discussion of this debate, see my TABS post, “Can the Torah Contradict Halacha: Ibn Ezra vs. Rashbam.”
In the posthumously published longer commentary on the Torah, Shadal says essentially the same thing with slightly different wording.
Shmuel Vargon, “Samuel David Luzzatto’s Critique of Rabbinic Exegesis Which Contradicts the Plain Meaning of Scripture,” Jewish Studies, an Internet Journal 2 (2003): 97-122 {99}.
It is possible that the strong custom among Italian Jews, even the rabbis, to shave their beards could be part of the reason. For more on this, see Mississippi Fred’s post, “Beards and Beardlessness in Italian Jewish History”. For more on the significance of beards in Jewish culture during this period of time, see Elliott Horowitz, “The Early Eighteenth Century Confronts the Beard: Kabbalah and Jewish Self-Fashioning,” Jewish History 8 (1994), 95-115. See also the post on The Seforim Blog, titled: “Jews, Beards and Portraits”.
