Narratively

Share this post

No Man In My Family Has Ever Dared Shave His Beard. Until Now.

www.narratively.com
Memoir

No Man In My Family Has Ever Dared Shave His Beard. Until Now.

I lived 26 years before I ever altered my religiously mandated facial hair. But I couldn’t stand the barrier it created between the modern world and me.

Joseph Newfield
Jan 12, 2017
∙ Paid
Share this post

No Man In My Family Has Ever Dared Shave His Beard. Until Now.

www.narratively.com
Share
Illustration by George Mager

I handed the barber a twenty-dollar bill and asked him to trim my beard. I was 26 years old, and the hairs on my chin had never been touched by a blade. The barber, a middle-aged Chinese man with long wavy hair, strong hands, and a no-nonsense demeanor, took out a large electric razor and began hacking away as if he was clearing a path through a forest.

Every motion of his hand felt like another stab to my heart. I wanted to lose the beard, but that didn’t make it less painful to let go of this part of my identity, my history, my tradition. To shave is considered a grave sin in the Hasidic Brooklyn community where I was raised. Every man I knew had a fully-grown beard.

Since my first day of college four years earlier, I had wanted to crawl out of my Hasidic enclave in Crown Heights and join the larger society. But my beard created barriers. The co-eds around me took me for the campus religious director and not the Knicks and Mets fan I was.

Day after day, the …

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to

Narratively
to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
Previous
Next
© 2023 Narratively, Inc.
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing