Orthodox Call on Sinners To Give Chickens a Fairer Shake
By Nathaniel Popper
What happens when a ritual designed to remove sin might itself generate sin?
That was the thorny question asked by rabbis who met in Brooklyn earlier this month in preparation for this year’s High Holy Days. The ritual in question is kapparot, a practice generally performed during the period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in which a live chicken is swung over one’s head in a gesture of transferring one’s sins of the past year onto the animal.
At the August 6 meeting in the synagogue of the Novominsker rebbe, more than a dozen religious heavyweights — including Rabbi Aryeh Kotler and Rabbi David Zwiebel — considered evidence that the chickens may have been mistreated in past ceremonies and acknowledged that the problem rose to a level that could violate rabbinic law.
After the conference, the rabbis collectively issued a call for members of the community to clean up the process during this year’s holiday season. The move was particularly notable because it came in response to complaints from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. In recent years, the animal rights group has come to be viewed as an adversary to the Orthodox community, with PETA run-ins leading more often to the butting of heads than to conciliatory gestures.
“In general, I don’t think that PETA is taken very seriously in the Orthodox community, or in any civilized society,” said Rabbi Avi Shafran, spokesman for the ultra-Orthodox Agudath Israel of America. “But that doesn’t mean that they won’t on occasion bring up something that is worth being brought up.”
In an editorial, the Orthodox newspaper Hamodia wrote that “the lofty purpose for which the bird is slaughtered cannot in any way excuse improper handling or storage of the birds prior to shechitah,” using the Hebrew word for slaughter.
The kapparot ceremony is one of the more colorful elements of the High Holy Days but one of the most historically fraught. Maimonides and later Joseph Caro, author of the authoritative code of Jewish law, both claimed that kapparot had its roots in pagan ritual and should be abandoned by religious Jews. But Moses Isserles, the famed 16th-century talmudist from Krakow promoted the practice, as did many of the founders of Hasidic Jewish sects.
Today, many Modern Orthodox Jews swing money, instead of chickens, over their heads. But Hasidic Jews have retained the use of the live animals. Men are instructed to use roosters, which are grasped by their shoulder blades and rotated above the person’s head three times. Women use hens for the ritual (two if the practitioner is pregnant). The animal is then supposed to be slaughtered immediately after the ritual and donated to a poor family.
Given the number of chickens required for this ceremony, some in the Orthodox community said it is not surprising that problems have arisen.
“It’s the very public nature and the pandemonium of slaughtering so many birds at one shot that necessarily involves problems,” said Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union and one of the participants at the August 6 meeting.
In recent years there have been a number of visible confrontations over the practice. In 2006, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals discovered 700 chickens that had been left in a garage in Brooklyn and, in another instance, PETA filed a complaint with the ASPCA in upstate New York when it found a batch of similarly abandoned birds.
PETA’s letter this year was accompanied by a lengthy video from ceremonies in 2005 and 2006. Included are scenes of live chickens being stuffed into garbage bags and teenagers ripping the heads off of chickens, which would clearly render the chickens un-kosher.
“The risk of communicable avian diseases and bacterial contamination is alarming, and the inhumane treatment and mishandling of animals at every stage of the process must be prevented,” the letter said.
PETA is known for its public campaigns, including the release of footage from the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse. In this case, the organization did not release the letter to the public but instead sent it and the video to Thomas Frieden, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, as well as a few sympathetic members of the ultra-Orthodox community, who raised the issue with rabbis. A spokesman for Frieden said the department had no comment on the issue.
Weinreb said that, at the August 6 meeting, “there was no criticism of PETA per se; there was a discussion of on what level they should respond.”
The next day, Hamodia ran its editorial, which called for an independent certifier to ensure that the animals are slaughtered according to kosher rules. A week later, Rabbi Gershom Tannenbaum devoted a column in Brooklyn’s Jewish Press to the subject. He wrote that the “inhumane treatment is clearly prohibited by the Torah” and mentioned a number of new measures, including the use of temporary shelters for the crates of chickens.
Bruce Friedrich, a vice president at PETA, said he has heard encouraging things from the organization’s contacts inside the ultra-Orthodox community about this year’s ceremony. There is, however, still the question of the ritual itself. Friedrich said that even if the animals are treated well before and after kapparot, the ceremony itself “should be abandoned for the same reason you wouldn’t take a cat and swing it over your head.”
He might have an unlikely ally in this effort. Tannenbaum, in his Jewish Press column, finished by noting that “using alternatives to chickens such as money to tzedakah, might be a desirable option. Even using a fish might be a good idea, if you can hold onto it!”
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Kudos to the rabbis and to PETA for the important work to help improve the welfare of animals, as God commands. Unfortunately, both the Jewish and general community has not given enough attention to the mistreatment of animals, which has gotten to the point of extreme torture on a massive scale in modern factory farms, household product testing facilities, and so on. If we take our moral obligations seriously, we must act. (And Shmuel, many sane people oppose testing drugs on animals. Millions of animals suffer in tests that are done for curiousity and don't help a single human. Even for those few tests that help humans, it is not Jewish to justify the torture of some for a "greater good", any more than we'd justify cruel experiments on a few humans to help many more. Some things are just unethical.)
A FEW THOUGHTS. THE TORAH COMMANDS US TO TREAT ALL HASHEMS CREATIONS WITH A CERTAIN LEVEL OF CARE. HOWEVER HUMANS, ANIMALS,PLANTS, DO NOT GET THE SAME LEVEL OF CARE THE HUMAN IS AT THE TOP OF THE LADDER & AS LONG AS THEIR IS A LEGITIMATE USE OF ANIMALS THAT IS PERMITTED BY G-D. WOULD ANY SANE PERSON PROHIBIT THE USE OF ANIMALS IN DRUG EXPERIMINTATION? I HOPE NOT ,( ALTHOUGH ITS NOT A PLEASANT SITE TO SEE ) THE REASON BEING THAT PITY ON THESE ANIMALS IS REALLY CRUELTY TO HUMANS CAN YOU IMAGINE SOMEONE GIVING A CONTAINER OF MILK TO A CAT RATHER THAN A BABY????? PRIORITISE SO BE SENSITIVE WHEN DOING KAPAROS AND THINK OF THE ISREALI SOLDIERS THAT ARE BEING HELD IN A FAR WORSE COOP OR THOSE IN SLOAN KETTERING CANCER WARD .& THOSE OF YOUR BROTHERS SUFFERING FROM MENTAL HEALTH DISORDERS, THIS YOM KIPPUR OPEN YOUR EARS TO THE CROWS OF YOUR FELLOW JEWSHELP THEM FIRST AND THE CHICKENS WILL FOLLOW
Re Kaporos: The issue is magic. Is this a reality - that our sins can be transferred to a chicken in a ritual? We can look for roots to this back to the ancient Holy Temple in Jerusalem, whose destruction we ritually mourn, and consider the animals slaughterred there for our purification. We can slao look to the Pascal Lamb. The real question is not animal cruelty and rights - for how many chickens go into the soup on Friday night, and holidays, but do we, should we can we accept in our cantury ritual animal slaughter for our sins? Haven't these rituals passed into history? Aren't there other ways of purification? What do the Chassidim say to this?
Claiming the blood of Jesus to remove sin makes much more sense.
Maybe not more sense, but at least as much. Swinging chickens to remove sin, cutting the foreskin of the [word deleted] (I know - word substituted, you pure ones, you) to keep "god" happy; I suppose it's a good thing "god" doesn't require a bone through the nose and feathers on the head for his loyal adherents. In a woid, how absoid ...
This article is very encouraging. Given that Torah-observant Jews can use money instead of chickens or other live animals in the kapparot ceremony, I hope the rabbis will stress the importance of compassion and sensitivity which are so central to Jewish teachings. Our letter to the Rabbinical Council of America can be found on our Website at www.upc-online.org/kaparos/81607letter.html. We also have a brochure called "A Wing & A Prayer: The Kapparot Chicken-Swinging Ritual." It's available on request. Thank you for your attention. Karen Davis, PhD, President United Poultry Concerns 12325 Seaside Rd, PO Box 150 Machipongo, VA 23405 757-678-7875 United Poultry Concerns is a nonprofit organization that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl. www.upc-online.org
As president of Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) and author of the book "Judaism and Vegetarianism," I am very happy about these recent developments. Kudos to all involved in these positive changes. Since Jews are to be rachmanim b'nei rachmanim (compassionate children of compassionate ancestors) and the psalmist tells us that G-d's commpassion is over all His creatures why not, as mentioned in the article, perform the kapparot ritual with money, rather than by harming and killing chickens. On a broader issue, are the distinguished rabbis who have made such wise decisions re kapparot willing to address the fact that animal-based diets and agriculture violate basic Jewish teachings re treating animals with compassion, preserving our health, protecting the environment, conserving natural resources and helping hungry people. Are they, and the Jewish community, willing to consider that animal-centered diets are causing an epidemic of diseases in the Jewish community and other communities and that 'livestock' agriculture contributes significantly to global warming and other envionmental threats to all of humanity. Why are Jewish leaders apparently unwilling to consider addressing the question: "Should Jews Be Vegetarians?" For further information, please go to the JVNA web site (JewishVeg.com) and see my over 130 related articls at JewishVeg.com/schwartz. Thanks. Shabbat shalom.
Great, pagan idol worshipping chicken swinging Jews are OK but Gays should be killed in the streets of Jerusalem.
Hopefully the Buddhists are right and these half-wits will be reincarnated as chickens. Now, that really would be irony!
humans have no right to take away the life of an innocent's god's creatures. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR SINS. WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND AND WILL HIT YOU SO HARD YOU WONT KNOW WHAT TO DO THEN!!!
The Minhag of Kapparot is NOT to transfer sins but transfer the sentence of death. Money to Tzadakah was always the medium of the transfer, which comes from "Tzadakah Tazil Mimavet". Poorer Jews used other means as a substitute for money, even domestic animals, as the means of transfer. When Jews were being heavily oppressed in Eastern Europe and Western Russia and most were forced to live aggrerian lives in villages, money became very hard to come by. Rabbis allowed the more scarce minhag of using chickens to become the norm.
You waste breath arguing over the “right” of a chicken whilst continuing to mutilate the genitalia of millions of boys!
Can humans possibly get any more stupid? They should rename it Crackpot, rather than kapparot! The sadistic Abrahamic religions should learn a little about empathy, and maybe they could do us all a favour by leaping over a cliff like lemmings (sorry, insult to lemmings) in order to expiate their sins, instead of scapegoating other living animals to sustain their monstrous egos.
I think that using mosquitoes instead of chickens would be a good idea. First transfer your sins to the mosquito (assuming your sins are not too big as mosquitoes are kind of small) and then killing the mosquito--which is a good thing, as mosquitoes breed disease and bite people. If someone has too many sins, he might finds a bigger bug unto which he could transfer his sins--provided the bug was dnagerous to human health.
Kapparot is one of the primitive ger customs which Hasidim still incorporate in their Jewish observance. Any movement to eliminate it is a step toward a more authentic Jewsish observation.
There is the argument that today people don't associate eating meat with the reality of how that meat got to their table. Witnessing an animal being slaughtered makes the necessity of the blessing and a humane killing more clear. It would/should make for greater kavanaugh when praying the blessing over meat I imagine. Just keeping the shechita in mind helps in living a more meaningful holier life, nu? If the chickens are treated humanely, killed in accordance with halacha, and eaten with a blessing to G-d, and all of this is used as an opportunity for shomer people to grow closer in their relationship to Hashem, then this scenario is better than a person mindlessly buying chicken at the store or restaurant, eating it without any consideration of all the events that had to occur for them to be satiated and possibly wasting some of it. I guess it's all in your perspective.
There is the argument that today people don't associate eating meat with the reality of how that meat got to their table. Witnessing an animal being slaughtered makes the necessity of the blessing and a humane killing more clear. It would/should make for greater kavanaugh when praying the blessing over meat I imagine. Just keeping the shechita in mind helps in living a more meaningful holier life, nu? If the chickens are treated humanely, killed in accordance with halacha, and eaten with a blessing to G-d, and all of this is used as an opportunity for shomer people to grow closer in their relationship to Hashem, then this scenario is better than a person mindlessly buying chicken at the store or restaurant, eating it without any consideration of all the events that had to occur for them to be satiated and possibly wasting some of it. I guess it's all in your perspective.
Thank you to Nathaniel Popper for his excellent article on Kapparot. While I'm glad that rabbis are finally meeting to discuss the issue, I suspect the proposed changes that were discussed are meaningless. As a resident of Boro Park, Brooklyn, one of the many neighborhoods where these atrocities are committed, I feel that this problem cannot be dealt with appropriately until the Kosher authorities and the orthodox community are ready to acknowledge the full magnitude of it. These barbaric, unsanitary, cruel forms of Kapporos represent the RULE, not the exception. They are widespread throughout the orthodox communities. Every year, chickens are found in horrendous conditions, starving, cold, plucking each others' eyes out for food. This is unacceptable, since the Torah mandates compassion for animals. Also, the practice of sacrificing chickens for this ritual is not even mentioned in the Torah. This brutal, unnecessary, archaic practice must be abolished. Period. Rina Deych
shmuel glassman wrote: "HOWEVER HUMANS, ANIMALS,PLANTS, DO NOT GET THE SAME LEVEL OF CARE THE HUMAN IS AT THE TOP OF THE LADDER" A little more humility would not be out of order. Every single living being that surrounds us, every blade of grass, has arrived at this moment, at "l'ha zman haze," in the face of nature's challenges. They are our brothers in survival and not our slaves and pawns to treat as we please. Respect that which feeds you.
If nothing else, the swinging chicken debate has brought home to me the futility of commenting on matters of religion. What can possibly be said to a true believer? That "god" doesn't check to see the status of his foreskin? That "god" isn't watching approvingly as he swings chickens over his head? What can be said about such strange beliefs other than to document them in textbooks of ethnography? And then it amuses me when people jeer at Scientology and "Lord Xenu." (For those not familiar with the Scientologists' ontology, I recommend googling "Lord Xenu" for an entertaining read.) The foreskin god and "Lord Xenu" both stand as shining monuments to human credulity and ability to entertain the most bizarre ideas.
"Claiming the blood of Jesus to remove sin makes much more sense." Begging the question. "Swinging chickens to remove sin, cutting the foreskin of the [word deleted] (I know - word substituted, you pure ones, you) to keep "god" happy; I suppose it's a good thing "god" doesn't require a bone through the nose and feathers on the head for his loyal adherents." Hasty Generalization "Even for those few tests that help humans, it is not Jewish to justify the torture of some for a "greater good", any more than we'd justify cruel experiments on a few humans to help many more." False Analogy "You waste breath arguing over the “right” of a chicken whilst continuing to mutilate the genitalia of millions of boys!" Appeal to Emotion "The ritual is designed to imbue people with the feeling that their lives are at stake as yom Kippur approaches, and that they must repent and seek atonement...The chicken is later slaughtered...and either the chicken or its cash value is given to the poor, for charity is an indespensible part of repentance...Technically, any [kosher]animal should be acceptable for kaparos ritual. However, in order that the ritual not be misconstrued as a sacrificial offering --an act prohibited in the absence of the Beis HaMikdash [Temple]--the animal used for kaparos may not be one that is suitable for such sacrifices...Chickens were chosen because the Hebrew word Gever means both man and rooster. Yom Kippur-Its Significance, Laws, and Prayers Mesorah Publications, page46-47.
"The sadistic Abrahamic religions should learn a little about empathy, and maybe they could do us all a favour by leaping over a cliff like lemmings (sorry, insult to lemmings) in order to expiate their sins" You obviously ooze empathy. Already thousands of years ago Judaism forbade causing unnecessary suffering to animals...but not any suffering. Judaism also recognized, as your post shows that compassion to animals by no stretch means one will not exhibit cruelty toward humans.
I witnessed this barbaric ritual along with my two children several years ago as it was taking place in a parking lot behind a group of stores. The sound of the chickens screaming in fear and pain was heart breaking and frightening. I called the police who did nothing. The mayor of the town did nothing also.
Kapparot does not actually transfer the sins to the chicken, but merely acts as a reminder for people to cleanse themselves of sin. Sincere repentance, charity and prayer are the way to cleanse sin, according to the Torah.
As a secular Jew I will be going to Kentucky Freid Chicken just before Kol Nidre and buyign a bucke tof chicken. I willswing it w around my head three times to transfer my sins-but my question is whther I should buy extra crispy! At least now I know why the chicken crossed the road! Obviously to get away from the Rabbi!
Since kapparot (With a chicken or with money) is not actually A Torah / ritual but a form of Idolatry practiced by a small collection of Jews that believe them selves to be better then the rest of Jewish society -- we could as members of main stream Jewish society disassociate ourselves from the ritual, making it clear that we will not have a part of it .
i think that you should have a v ideo on this practice so all people can see and make a decision for them selves, la shana tova
I think money is a good alternative. We need to have compassion with every single live animal. We are all in this planet, together. God created all in the Earth. Every chicken was created by God. We need to teach compassion to our children.
These slaughtered chickens should be immediately put on freezer trucks and donated to soup kitchens and the like. There seems to be a breakdown between this traditional religious practice and common/humane sense. Subscriber: Marty Greenbaum and Eileen Mislove
THERE ARE TOO MANY CRUEL AND INHUMANE BEHAVIORS PRACTICES IN THE HASIDIC COMMUNITY. FROM CIRCUMCISION AND ORAL SUCKING OF THE BLOOD, REQUIRED WIG WEARING FOR WOMEN, ELECTROSHOCK THERAPY OF ADOLESCENTS WISHING TO REBEL, MULTIPARITY BEYOND REASON, WELFARE FUNDING...SHALL I GO ON? I BELIEVE IN LIVE AND LET LIVE, BUT THESE ARE ISSUES THAT GO BEYOND REASON AND CREATE EXTREME REPULSION FROM THE REST OF THE WORLD.
... The faces of the children pictured say it ALL. Their natural revulsion at this brutal crime indicates how much more compassionate they are than the foolish parents who force them to take part in this hideous practice.
Rina Deych, RN
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