Background on hajlaja (AKA upsherin)

Question

R' Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, ZT"L has written on the minhag (read: MINHAG, not halaja) of upsherin (Hebrew Hajlaja) and it can be found in his translated volume called "The Collected Writings" It's easy to assume that Hirsch, of 19th cent enlightened Germany, would be one of the least likely person to observe upsherin. However, a man from Hungary settled in Frankfurt and invited R Hirsch to attend. The article is based on the ideas he spoke about on the occasion of the simja. The source of the custom is the Zohar, which bases it on the combination of a couple of verses from Torah. In prohibiting the chopping down of fruit trees for wood (which actually refers to unwarranted waste in general) the Torah writes "For man is a tree of the field." Step two: the Torah prohibits eating of the fruit of a tree for the first three years. Based upon the connection implied by the first verse, there exist mystical reasons not to cut a child's hair for three years. I don't know why it would apply to boys and not girls, but that is the practice. Tied to the notion of upsherin (from the same root as the English "to shear") is the idea that this is the beginning of the child's education. He is taken to learn alef-bet on that day. Some communities have the custom of preparing sweets shaped like the letters of the alef-bet, while others dab honey on a tablet where the letters are written, and encourage the child to take a lick. This again implies a boys-learn-Torah association, suggesting a reason why girls don't have an upsherin, but the verses don't imply anything about this second custom. Also, with the first haircut comes the first opportunity to keep the mitzvah of not cutting peiyot while cutting the rest of the hair. Tzitzit are worn for the first time as well. R' Hirsch notes that the fruit of the first three years is called 'Orlah', just as the skin removed during circumcision, as well as the prophetic/poetic image of the orlat haleiv, the callus of insensitivity that one must remove from one's heart. Here, we talk about "orlat harosh", symbolically removing the impediment to understanding. R' Hirsch ties this into the notion of peiyot, which provide a discernible barrier, a line drawn to remind you of the separation between the animal and human parts of our psyche. R' Hirsch article goes into much more detail and depth than this summary, but hopefully I now have prompted more interest inthis unlikely source. Upsherin is not the custom of most Ashkenazim, although many do keep it (along with others)because that's what the overwhelming majority of their neighbors are doing. It really is observed more by Chassidic and some Sephardim, especially in Eretz Yisrael. However, it is rapidly becoming a "minhag America" (custom of the overall American Jewish community)