Kapparos

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It has been suggested that Kapparah be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

1 Controversy
2 See also
3 References
4 Sources
5 External links

This article is about the ritual of Kapparos. For the Kaporet – the cover of the Ark of the Covenant – see that article.

Kapparos or Kaparot (Hebrew: כפרות‎) is a traditional Jewish religious ritual that takes place around the time of the High Holidays. Classically, it is performed by grasping a live chicken by the sholder blades and moving around one's head three times, symbolically transferring one's sins to the chicken. ( The chicken is then slaughtered and donated to the poor, preferably eaten at the pre-Yom Kippur feast.^[1]

In modern times, Kapparos is performed in the traditional form mostly in Haredi communities. Members of other communities tend to perform this ritual with charity money substituted for the chicken, swung over one's head in similar fashion.

As the chicken (or money) is swung about the head, the following paragraph is traditionally recited:

This is my exchange, this is my substitute, this is my atonement. (This rooster will go to its death / This money will go to charity), while I will enter and proceed to a good long life and to peace.^[2]

[edit] Controversy

Rabbi Yosef Karo wrote in his major work on Jewish law that the custom had parallels to polytheistic rites and ought not be practiced. Rabbi Moses Isserles' commentary to that section disagrees and encourages the practice.^[3] In Ashkenazi communities especially, Isserles' position came to be widely accepted. The late 19th century monumental work Kaf Hachaim approves of the custom for the Sefardic community as well.

Some Jews oppose the use of chickens for kapparot on the grounds of tza'ar ba'alei chayim (unnecessary pain to animals) [1]. On erev Yom Kippur 5766/2005, a number of caged chickens were abandoned in rainy weather as part of a kapparot operation in Brooklyn, NY; some of these starving and dehydrated chickens were subsequently rescued by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals [2] Subsequently Jacob Kalish, an Orthodox Jewish man from Williamsburg, was charged with animal cruelty for the drowning deaths of 35 of these kapparot chickens [3]. In response to such reports of the mistreatment of chickens, animal rights organizations have begun to picket public observances of kapparot, particularly in Israel [4].