Kaparot ( Hebrew כפרות ) is a Jewish rite practiced by some religious Jews on the eve of Yom Kippur . There are many different elements in the rite, the most famous of which is to twist live chicken or money over your head three times. The purpose of the rite is to remind and give a person the feeling that harsh punishment is imposed for sins, which should prompt a person to repent on the eve of Judgment Day . Slaughtered chicken or money is given to poor people as a donation, thereby increasing their merits before Judgment Day.
Content
- 1 Etymology
- 2 Practice
- 2.1 Rooster
- 2.2 Money
- 3 The meaning of the rite
- 4 Historical dispute
- 5 notes
- 6 References
Etymology
Kaparot is the plural of the word kapar ( Hebrew כפרה ), which means "purification" and comes from the Hebrew root kp -r ("redeem"). [one]
Practice
Kaparot, according to Jewish religious tradition, is performed in the afternoon before Yom Kippur . To perform the ritual, a man takes a rooster, and a woman takes a chicken. If it is not possible to get a rooster or chicken, you can replace them with another kosher bird, with the exception of pigeons; some replace the bird with live fish, some use money instead of the animal. Holding the bird in his right hand, they pronounce the passage “Bnei Adam ...” (“Sons of men ...”) three times [2] :
| The sons of man, who dwell in the darkness and shadow of death, bound by the shackles of poverty and iron, Gd will remove them from the darkness, from the shadow of death, and will break their fetters. Reckless - because they suffer for their criminal path and for sins, their soul rejects all food, they will reach the gates of death. And they will cry out in grief to the Lord , and He will deliver them from calamities, send His word, and heal them, save them from destruction. They will glorify Gd for his mercy and for the miracles that He showed to the sons of men. If a person has only one guardian angel out of a thousand in order to put in the word of justification, then Gd will have mercy on this person, saying: “save him from falling into the nether world, I have found atonement for him”. [3] |
Sephardim do not read the passage “Bnei Adam ...” [4] .
Then, rotating the chicken or money around the head, read the following paragraph:
| It is a substitute for me, it is instead of me, it is my ransom! This rooster (chicken) will go to sacrifice / This money will go to charity, and my destiny will be a prosperous long life and peace. [4] [3] [5] |
After that, the bird is referred to the shoikhet (slaughter house) for ritual slaughter (shikhita) .
Rooster
In one embodiment, the caparot of a rooster is rotated around the head, cut in accordance with the shechita procedure, and then donated to charity. Nowadays, kaparot with a live cock is carried out mainly in Hasidic communities .
Money
In the second version, the kaparot money is twisted around the head in a small bag or just clasped in the hand, and then give it to charity [4] [6] .
The meaning of the rite
The purpose of the Kaparot rite is a person’s personal preparation for Yom Kippur. All the personal sins of a person are symbolically transferred to the chicken, the words of Isaiah (1: 17-18) in the Scripture are cited as an argument: “learn to do good ... Then come and we will judge,” says the Lord. If your sins are like crimson, like white snow ... ” This religious practice was first mentioned in 853 BC. e. in the books of Natronai ben Gilay , a Gaon of the Academy of Sura in Babylonia , who describes it as a custom of Babylonian and Persian Jews. In the nineteenth century, Jewish scholars explain that since the word "hever" [7] in Hebrew means "man" and "rooster", a rooster can act and serve as a religious and spiritual "substitute" for a person. In communities where chickens are raised, slaughtered birds are used to provide food for poor families, often through community organizations that organize distribution.
A person should not think that, having performed this rite, he has already earned atonement, but through this rite he should repent of his sins, clearly imagining that the torment experienced by the bird would be a fair punishment for himself for all his misconduct - and hope for the mercy of the Almighty on him.
Proponents of the use of money in the rite of kaparot believe that the main thing in kaparot is that the needy get help, and when the kaparot is made with chicken, it is difficult to trace; in addition, the torment of animals is contrary to Judaism, more precisely, the Mitzvah “Tsaar Baalei Haim” [4] .
In both versions of the ritual, regardless of whether it uses money or chickens, charity is the most important element.
Historic Dispute
Some rabbis vigorously opposed the kaparot, including Moshe ben Nachman , Shlomo ben Aderett and Joseph Karo . They believed that this was a non-Jewish ritual contrary to the spirit of Judaism , which did not allow the possibility of sacrifices outside the Temple in Jerusalem . However, he was approved by Rabbi Asher bin Yehiel (1250-1327) and his son Jacob bin Asher (1269-1343). The ritual particularly attracted Kabbalists such as Isaiah Horowitz and Isaac Luria , who recommended choosing a white rooster for the rite, referring primarily to Isaiah 1:18 and finding other mystical allusions in the formulas established by the rite. As a result, the practice has become generally accepted among Ashkenazi and Hasidic Jews in Eastern Europe.
In the book Shulchan Aruch, the Sephardic rabbi Yosef Karo opposed the ritual. According to the arguments cited in the Mishnah brura , his opinion was based on the fact that this rite was too reminiscent of the non-Jewish. The Ashkenazi rabbi Moshe Isserles had a different opinion and called for kaparot to be respected. [8] In Ashkenazi communities, it was generally accepted to adhere to the position of Isserles. At the end of the 19th century, the orthodox rabbi Kaf a-Haim approved the Kaparot rite in the Sephardic community.
Notes
- ↑ Strong's Concordance Lexicon entry for kaphar (Hebrew word # 3722) . Ranch Santa Margarita, CA: Blue Letter Bible. - "cover, get rid, cleanse, cleansing, covered in tar." Date of treatment August 19, 2011.
- ↑ Error in footnotes ? : Invalid
<ref>; for footnotes<ref name=no text specified - ↑ 1 2 Kaparot Rite — Atonement for Yom Kippur
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Kaparot - the rite of redemption
- ↑ Complete collection of ArtScroll Machzor: Yom Kippur, p. 4
- ↑ Strum, Andrew The Ancient Origins of an Obscure Egyptian Jewish High Holy Day Custom . Historical Society of Jews from Egypt (2002). “... also practices with coins, which are then donated to charity.” Date of treatment August 16, 2011. Archived on August 6, 2011.
- ↑ Complete collection of the Hebrew Bible. David H. Stern −1998
- ↑ Shulchan Aruch . Orah Chaim. 605: 1