Kapparot

{{Short description|Atonement ritual practiced by Orthodox Jews}} {{italic title}} thumb|''Kapparot'' ritual on the eve of Yom Kippur '''''Kapparot''''' ({{langx|he|כפרות}}, Ashkenazi transliteration: {{Transliteration|he|Kapporois}}, {{Transliteration|yi|Kapores}}) is a customary atonement ritual practiced by some Orthodox Jews on the eve of Yom Kippur. This is a practice in which either money is waved over a person's head, or a chicken is waved over the head and then slaughtered in accordance with halachic rules.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Annulment of Vows and Kapparot - Jewish Tradition |url=https://yahadut.org/en/shabbat-and-festivals/yom-kippur/annulment-of-vows-and-kapparot/ |access-date=2024-08-24 |website=yahadut.org |language=en}}</ref>

==Etymology== thumb|right|200px|Lithograph of Kapparot, late 19th/early 20th century {{lang|he-Latn|Kapparah}} ({{lang|he|כפרה}}), the singular of {{lang|he-Latn|kapparot}}, means "atonement" and comes from the Semitic root {{lang|sem-x-proto|כ־פ־ר ''k-p-r''|italic=unset|proto=no}}, which means 'to cover'.<ref name=":1">{{cite web |url= http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H3722&t=NASB |title= Strong's Concordance Lexicon entry for kaphar (Hebrew word #3722) |publisher= Blue Letter Bible |location= Rancho Santa Margarita, California |access-date= 2011-08-19 |quote= to cover, purge, make an atonement, make reconciliation, cover over with pitch}}</ref>

==Practice== [[File:ShohetWithRoosterThumb.jpg|thumb|right|''The Shochet with Rooster'' by Israel Tsvaygenbaum, 1997]] On the afternoon before Yom Kippur, one prepares an item to be donated to the poor for consumption at the pre-Yom Kippur meal,<ref name=":0">''Shulchan Aruch Rama Orach Chayim'' 605:1</ref> recites the two biblical passages of {{bibleverse-lb||Psalms|107:17-20|HE}} and {{bibleverse-lb||Job|33:23-24|HE}}, and then swings the prepared charitable donation over one's head three times while reciting a short prayer three times.

===Using a rooster=== [[File:PikiWiki Israel 3411 Jewish holidays.JPG|thumb|right|250px|A vendor at Mahane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem sells roosters for ''kapparot'' before Yom Kippur, circa 1983.]] In one variant of the practice of ''kapparot'', the item to be donated to charity is a rooster. In this case, the rooster is waved over one's head while still alive, and a prayer is recited expressing the hope that if one were destined to receive harsh divine decrees in the new year, the decrees should be transferred to the rooster in the merit of the charity that is about to be performed.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Kaparot Ceremony |url=https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/989585/jewish/Kaparot.htm |access-date=2025-09-15 |website=www.chabad.org |language=en}}</ref>

After the ''kapparot'' ritual is concluded, the rooster is treated as a normal kosher poultry product, i.e., it is slaughtered according to the laws of ''shechita''. It is then given to charity for consumption at the pre-Yom Kippur meal. In modern times, this variant of the ritual is performed with a rooster for men and a hen for women.

When a rooster or hen is used, the conclusion of the recited prayer translates as: {{blockquote|This is my exchange, this is my substitute, this is my atonement. This rooster (hen) will go to its death, while I will enter and proceed to a good long life and to peace.<ref name="The Complete p.4">''The Complete ArtScroll Machzor: Yom Kippur'', p.4</ref>}}According to Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov, one should not think of the ''kapparot'' themselves as a source of atonement. Rather, the chickens are intended to serve as a means of raising one's awareness that he may be deserving of death because of his sins, thereby motivating him to repent and ask God for mercy before the Day of Atonement.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kitov |first=Eliyahu |title=The Custom of Kaparot |url=https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4441/jewish/Kaparot.htm |access-date=2025-09-15 |website=www.chabad.org |language=en}}</ref>

===Using money=== In a second variant of the practice of ''kapparot'', a bag of money is swung around the head and then given to charity.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.hsje.org/Holidays/kaparot.htm |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080516084427/http://hsje.org/Holidays/kaparot.htm |url-status= dead |archive-date= May 16, 2008 |title= The Ancient Origins of an Obscure Egyptian Jewish High Holy Day Custom |first= Andrew |last= Strum |year= 2002 |publisher= Historical Society of Jews From Egypt |access-date= 2011-08-16 |quote= ... alternatively been practised with coins which are then donated to charity.}}</ref>

In this case, the conclusion of the recited prayer translates as: {{blockquote|This is my exchange, this is my substitute, this is my atonement. This money will go to charity, while I will enter and proceed to a good long life and to peace.<ref name="The Complete p.4">''The Complete ArtScroll Machzor: Yom Kippur'', p.4</ref>}}

==Sources== The practice of ''kapparot'' is mentioned for the first time by Amram ben Sheshna of Sura Academy in Babylonia in 670 and later by Natronai ben Hilai, also of Sura Academy, in 853. According to Joshua Trachtenberg, the rite probably originated toward the end of the Talmudic period.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Trachtenberg|first=Joshua|author-link=Joshua Trachtenberg|title=Jewish Magic and Superstition|location=Philadelphia|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|year=2004|orig-date=Originally published 1939|isbn=9780812218626|page=163}}</ref> Jewish scholars in the ninth century explained that since the Hebrew word {{lang|he|גבר}}<ref>Complete Jewish Bible by David H. Stern -1998</ref> means both "man" and "rooster", a rooster may substitute as a religious and spiritual vessel in place of a man.

==Historical controversy== [[File:Kaparot.jpg|thumb|250px|The original printing of Joseph ben Ephraim Karo's ''Shulchan Aruch'', Orach Chayim, ch. 605, states in the chapter heading that ''kapparot'' is a nonsensical custom that should be abolished. Later editions removed this. However, according to Samson Morpurgo (''Shemesh Tsedakah'', 1:23), the chapter heading was not written by Rabbi Karo but was inserted by the publishers.]] ''Kapparot'' was strongly opposed by some rabbis, among them Nachmanides, Shlomo ben Aderet, and the Sephardi rabbi Joseph ben Ephraim Karo in the ''Shulchan Aruch''. According to the ''Mishnah Berurah'', his reasoning was based on the caution that it is similar to non-Jewish rites.

The Ashkenazi rabbi Moses Isserles disagreed with Karo and encouraged ''kapparot''.<ref name=":0" /> In Ashkenazi communities especially, Rabbi Isserles' position came to be widely accepted, since Ashkenazi Jews will generally follow the halachic rulings of Rabbi Isserles where the Sephardic and Ashkenazic customs differ. It was also approved by Asher ben Jehiel (c. 1250–1327) and his son Jacob ben Asher (1269–1343) and other commentators. The ritual was also supported by Kabbalists, such as Isaiah Horowitz and Isaac Luria, who recommended the selection of a white rooster as a reference to {{bibleverse-lb||Isaiah|1:18|HE}} and who found other mystic allusions in the prescribed formulas. Consequently, the practice became generally accepted among the Ashkenazi Jews and Hasidim of Eastern Europe. The ''Mishnah Berurah'' agrees with Rabbi Isserles, solidifying support for the practice among Lithuanian Jews as well. The Mishnah Berurah only supports the use of money (i.e., not a chicken) if there might be a problem with the slaughter due to haste or fatigue.<ref name=":0" />

In the late 19th-century work ''Kaf Hachaim'', Yaakov Chaim Sofer approves of the custom for Sephardi Jews as well.

==Animal cruelty controversy== Some Jews oppose the use of chickens for ''kapparot'' on the grounds of ''tza'ar ba'alei chayim'', the principle banning cruelty to animals.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.jewishveg.com/schwartz/kapparot.html |title=THE CUSTOM OF KAPPAROT IN THE JEWISH TRADITION |access-date=2008-10-06 |archive-date=2012-12-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121224151357/http://www.jewishveg.com/schwartz/kapparot.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The American nonprofit PETA has made the claim that more than two-thirds of all the slaughtered birds are simply thrown in the trash, while the ''kapparot'' organizers claim that the sites donate the dead chickens to feed the poor.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://support.peta.org/page/2630/action/1?locale=en-US | title=URGENT: Tens of Thousands of Chickens to be Slaughtered in Ritual Killing }}</ref>

On Yom Kippur eve 2005, a number of caged chickens were abandoned in rainy weather as part of a ''kapparot'' operation in Brooklyn, New York; some of these starving and dehydrated chickens were subsequently rescued by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://archive.recordonline.com/archive/2005/10/22/swinger0.htm |last=Horrigan |first=Jeremiah |date=2005-10-22 |publisher=Times Herald-Record |access-date=2008-10-06 |title=Abandoned chickens saved from death |archive-date=2010-06-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100606080554/http://archive.recordonline.com/archive/2005/10/22/swinger0.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> Jacob Kalish, an Orthodox Jewish man from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was charged with animal cruelty for the drowning deaths of 35 of these ''kapparot'' chickens.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://pqarchiver.nypost.com/nypost/access/924767591.html?dids=924767591:924767591&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Nov+10%2C+2005&author=PHILIP+MESSING&pub=New+York+Post&edition=&startpage=027&desc=ABUSE+MOST+FOWL%3B+CHICKEN-DEATH+BUST |title=Abuse Most Fowl; Chicken-death Bust |date=2005-11-10 |publisher=New York Post |access-date=2009-05-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110714223126/http://pqarchiver.nypost.com/nypost/access/924767591.html?dids=924767591:924767591&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Nov+10,+2005&author=PHILIP+MESSING&pub=New+York+Post&edition=&startpage=027&desc=ABUSE+MOST+FOWL%3B+CHICKEN-DEATH+BUST |archive-date=2011-07-14 |url-status=dead }}</ref> In response to such reports of the mistreatment of chickens, Jewish animal rights organizations have begun to picket public observances of animal ''kapparot'', particularly in Israel.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3309121,00.html |date=2006-09-28 |last=Sela |first=Neta |access-date=2008-10-06 |title=Rabbis cry 'fowl' on ritual use of chickens}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title= Activists cry foul over ultra-Orthodox chicken ritual |first= Nicole |last= Neroulias |url= http://newsok.com/activists-cry-foul-over-ultra-orthodox-chicken-ritual/article/feed/189277 |agency= Associated Press |newspaper= The Oklahoman |date= 2010-09-08 |access-date= 2011-08-30 |quote= Some efforts, though, have been made to point out that the ritual is not religiously required and can instead be performed with money.}}</ref>

Proponents of the animal ''kapparot'' ritual in the United States argue the practice to be constitutionally protected as an exercise of freedom of religion in the United States, which is further supported by a 1993 Supreme Court of the United States decision in the case of ''Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah''. In that case, the court upheld the right of Santería adherents to practice ritual animal sacrifice, with Justice Anthony Kennedy stating in the decision, "Religious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent or comprehensible to others in order to merit First Amendment protection" (quoted by Justice Kennedy from the opinion by Justice Warren E. Burger in ''Thomas v. Review Board of the Indiana Employment Security Division'', {{ussc|450|707|1981}}).<ref>{{cite book|last=Hall|first=Daniel E.|title=Criminal Law and Procedure|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KnBnknQAHlkC&pg=PA266|year=2008|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-1-4283-4059-6|page=266}}</ref> However, the Supreme Court's principal concern in its decision was that the City of Hialeah specifically targeted a religious ritual, curbing the religious rights of a specific community, which conflicts with the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.

==See also== {{Portal|Judaism|Birds}} * Atonement in Judaism * Kosher slaughterer * Minhag * Repentance in Judaism * Tashlikh

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== {{commons category}} * [http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=101&letter=K Kapparah] at the Jewish Encyclopedia online * [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/28/kaparot-yom-kippur-in-cro_n_301803.html Kaparot: Yom Kippur In Crown Heights] - slideshow by ''The Huffington Post''

{{High Holidays}} {{Chicken}} {{Animal welfare}}

Category:Animal festival or ritual Category:Animal welfare Category:Jewish law and rituals Category:High Holy Days Category:Yom Kippur Category:Judaism-related controversies Category:Animals in Judaism