Chicken Swinging
For The Soul

.

Custom of kapparot is an annual tradition for some.

Joseph Salama of

Farmington Hills gets

ready to swing his
chicken after reciting

,

prayers; next to him Dan
Skoczylas of Southfield

with his son, Avi, 8.

Joyce Eisenberg
and Ellen Scolnic
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

T

he days leading to Yom
Kippur each year are
filled with ceremonies
and traditions to cleanse the soul,
from the familiar penitent rep-
etitions of the Al Cheit prayer
to tossing breadcrumbs into a
stream for tashlich, the ritual
casting away of sins.
But perhaps none is as myste-
rious as the custom of kapparot
(kah-pah-ROT). Literally mean-
ing "atonement," many describe
it as the practice of symbolically
transferring one's sins to another
object, particularly a chicken.
"Actually it is more of a real-
ization that our lives are better
when we don't commit sins," said
Rabbi Chaim Bergstein of Bais
Chabad of Farmington Hills,

where 1,000 individuals partici-
pate in the ritual each year.
"By having a chicken killed,
and through the prayers that
accompany the ritual, it gives us
the awareness of how fleeting
and precious life is and helps us
to make a choice to not waste
our lives and to dedicate them to
something good. It is a very deep,
psychological realization."
The ritual of kapparot still is
practiced by some Jews, usu-
ally on the day preceding Yom
Kippur, having taken place at
Bais Chabad this year on the eve-
ning of Sept. 30.
A rooster is selected for the
men and a hen for the women,
with about 300-350 of each pro-
vided at Bais Chabad. "We are
not allowed to make a sacrifice
outside of the Temple" Rabbi
Bergstein said. "So the chicken is
chosen here because it is an ani-

mal that was not allowed to have
been sacrificed."
The bird is taken in the right
hand and circled three times
over the heads of the participants
while these verses are recited:
"This is my substitute, this is
my exchange. This is my atone-
ment. This fowl will go to death,
and I will enter upon a good and
long life."
A kosher butcher then slaugh-
ters the chicken and the meat is
given to the poor.
At Rabbi Bergstein's syna-
gogue, ritual slaughterer Zalmen
Whitt of Oak Park does the
kosher slaughtering, and then
the meat is donated to area food
banks.
The ritual is thought to
have been first observed by
Babylonian Jews in the third
century. Based on the idea of
substituting one living being for

another, kap-
parah echoes
the ancient
Temple prac-
tice in which
the sins of the
Israelites were
transferred to
a goat that was
sent to wander
in the wilder-
ness or pushed
off a cliff — the
original "scape-
goat."
Both kapparot
and kippur
come from the
Hebrew root
— kappar
-- which means
to forgive, atone
and appease.
Through the
centuries, some
Jewish sages
.labeled kapparot
a heathen super-
stition and a
foolish custom.
The Shulchan Aruch, a compila-
tion of Jewish law, mentions the
custom but disapproves of it. But
with the support of a powerful
Polish rabbi, Moses Isserles, in
the 16th century, German and
Polish Jews continued to practice
it.
In a Sephardi version of
kapparot, Egyptian children
plant seeds early in the month
before Yom Kippur and then
twirl the young sprouts over their
heads. This method dates back to
at least the times of the commen-
tator Rashi, who wrote, "and on
the eve of Rosh Hashanah each
and every one" took the sprouted
beans "and circled it around his
head seven times saying: 'This in
lieu of this; this is my exchange;
this is my substitute.'"
In another, more common ver-
sion of kapparot practiced today,

Jews swing money placed in a
handkerchief over their heads
and recite, "this coin shall go to
charity but I shall find a long and
pleasant life of peace."
Using plants or coins addresses
the more contemporary objec-
tions to kapparot, which point
to the possible suffering of the
chickens.

JN Staff Writer Shelli Liebman

Dorfman contributed to this story.

Joyce Eisenberg and Ellen Scolnic

are co-authors of The JPS Dictionary

of Jewish Words (Jewish Publication

Society, 2006).

Answering
Israel's Critics

The Charge:

At a forum last week in
Dearborn, Imad Hamad, local
director of the Arab American
Anti-Discrimination
committee, said the Israeli
occupation" continues to be
the main obstacle to peace
between Israel and its Arab
neighbors.

((

The Answer:

Israel has withdrawn com-
pletely from Gaza, and par-
tially from the West. Bank. It
is willing to negotiate peace-
fully over its claims to the
West Bank, and make further
significant compromise and
withdrawals, if the Arabs
end terrorism and recognize
Israel's right to exist. In other
words, Israel has been pre-
pared for many years to end
its military presence on the
West Bank in exchange for a
true peace with security.

— Allan Gale, Jewish
Community Council of
Metropolitan Detroit

October 5

>'

2006

25