Q&A: Kapparot
Kapparot
Question
Hello, Rabbi!
What is your opinion of the kapparot custom in general? Is it proper to observe it, and what is its rationale? Isn’t it pagan?
What is your opinion of the custom of kapparot with chickens, in general and nowadays?
And what is your opinion of the public discourse and the Ministry of Agriculture’s campaign against the custom of kapparot with chickens?
Answer
About this custom, the author of the Shulchan Arukh already wrote his opinion. I can only join him. As for money, that sounds more reasonable, because charity certainly helps in the paths of repentance (though saying the formula is unnecessary, because it creates the feeling that this is some kind of atoning magic).
I am not familiar with the Ministry of Agriculture’s campaign, but if it calls for using money and not chickens—I am entirely with it.
It is written by the halakhic decisors not to use the internal organs, but rather to throw them onto the roofs for the birds, in order to recall that “His mercies are upon all His works.”
An amusing anecdote:
There are stations in Bnei Brak where you can slaughter the chicken after the “kapparot” and receive it plucked and ready for salting.
Someone took advantage of the opportunity, stood there, and asked the “atoned” people for the livers of the chickens, for himself.
I saw him asking his fellow for the liver, and the other one refusing. He couldn’t give the liver, because he needed to fulfill the “custom” properly, in order to merit atonement.