When he was alive, the Lubavitcher rebbe distributed dollar bills to encourage people to give tzedekah. Dollar bills were also distributed on the first day of the annual kaparot event in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights this year but not by the Lubavitchers.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals this year stepped up activism against the practice — when a Jew takes a live chicken and rotates it in a circle while saying prayers to absolve himself of sin. By handing out dollar bills shaped into origami chickens to Lubavitchers in Crown Heights, as well as to Hasidim in Williamsburg and Boro Park, PETA hoped to persuade passersby to give money for their pre-Yom Kippur atonements rather than swing chickens.
The PETA people also tried to distribute, near the kaparot center on Eastern Parkway, posters that read: “Gelt, Not Guilt — For a Cruelty-Free Kapporos, Please Use Money, Not Chickens.”
While residents gladly accepted the cash, some ignored the activists’ plea, and a few loudly challenged them.
While Philip Schein — the PETA senior researcher who since 2005 has been pressuring Lubavitch and other Hasidic leaders to stop, or at least reform, their kaparot practices — spoke with a reporter, a middle-aged woman screamed at him, “Get a life!” Another woman screamed at Schein that he was the moser (informer) who put two Rubashkins in jail and that he should leave the neighborhood. (The Lubavitch-affiliated Rubashkin family owned the Iowa kosher slaughterhouse that was the site of documented animal abuse and a massive federal immigration raid.)
Meantime, two tiny Lubavitch girls handed out copies of a picture of a man clad in a Hazmat suit throwing a puppy into the trash, an image from an anti-Peta Web site.
There was a carnival-like feeling to the goings-on in Crown Heights, punctuated by the odor of fowl feces. Families with young children bought chickens — a hen for women and a rooster for men — from a large truck stacked high with crates and parked in the emergency lane alongside Eastern Parkway.
Meir Simcha Kogan and his wife were helping their 7-year-old daughter and three younger sons, including 3 1/2-year-old twin boys, with the ritual.
The girl hung back, but the boys circled around Empire Kosher Poultry Supermarket carton that held two chickens. One boy eagerly tried to pet the birds, while the other twin looked frightened by their squawking as each was lifted from the box by its wings. The chickens quieted when Kogan held each one gently underneath its breast and tucked its wings under his other hand.
As his wife, who declined to give her name, helped one twin say the blessing — which asks God to make the chicken the proxy for the person and carry his sins away — Kogan circled the chicken carefully over the boy’s head.
“I have nothing against PETA,” Kogan said, “but this is a tradition. There are a lot of kabbalistic reasons that we do this.”
When asked what some are, Kogan said, “Not everything we do do we understand.”
After the ritual, the chickens would be slaughtered and the meat distributed to the Lubavitchers who flock to Crown Heights for the Jewish holidays, he said.
Schein noted a hose being used to spray the chickens’ cages with water.
“That’s a huge development,” he said. “It’s better than nothing, and shows that the message is getting through to [Rabbi Shea] Hecht that they have to do something to improve treatment and conditions even if they are only doing it because of all the public scrutiny.” Hecht is chairman of the National Committee for Furtherance of Jewish Education, which sponsors the Crown Heights kaparot event. He describes Schein as “a wacko who has a vendetta against us.”
In 2004, Schein went undercover at Agriprocessors, the Rubashkins’ slaughterhouse, documenting animal abuse. Further investigations led to the 2008 federal immigration raid, the arrest and deportation of 389 Central American workers who were here illegally, and the arrest of members of the prominent Rubashkin family. Two Agriprocessors’ executives — a son and grandson of founder Aaron Rubashkin — are in custody, one already sentenced to prison and the other awaiting trial October 13.
Hecht says that “shlugging kaparot,” or “swinging chickens,” is a matter of religious freedom.
“My grandparents and your grandparents came to this country for religious freedom,” he said. “This is my religious prerogative.”
Contact Debra Nussbaum Cohen at dnussbaumc@forward.com
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There really should be a way to modify the practice that would be acceptable to everyone. One would hope that thoughtful rabbis will seek such a solution.
I agree with J.C. I believe this is a cruel practice. What about Tashlik? Tradition, schlmadition.
How would you like it of chickens suddenly 'got religion' and decided to swing a dingbat- er, human - around to help absolve themselves of sin?
What about the tradition of tsa'ar ba'alei chaim, which enjoins Jews against causing pain to animals?
"Not everything we do do we understand" - the understatement of the century. As far as "tradition" goes, I am relieved that today's Mexicans don't insist on observing the Aztec tradition of ripping peoples' hearts out on stone altars. Bizarre folk, these religious.
I want someone here to explain to me how they can find the idea credible and reasonable, that in the Universe we know there is a supreme being that takes a particular interest in the comings and goings of the human species on Earth. And not only the species in general, but a small subgroup in particular that proclaims to have been "chosen" by the "ruler of the Universe."
As we learn from science, our universe (possibly one among many) is an incredibly big place and humans are disappearingly small, traveling through space on an undistinguished planet in an undistinguished solar system in one of the outer spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy, which is one among *billions* of galaxies that we can observe, not counting those beyond our powers of observation.
I don't mean to be disrespectful to anyone, but with the best of intentions I can't see how anything can be said about any "ruler of the universe," much less such a ruler's intentions. I can't comprehend the belief that a "ruler" over such a vast domain as the known universe would pick a particular tribe of a relatively microscopic subspecies of primate on a remote planet and declare it "chosen" and special. Surely one doesn't need to be a wild-eyed radical or iconoclast to find such a notion beyond belief? How can the people I know, who kick the tires before they buy a car and are shrewd in business and keen in the perception of their fellow man, believe that a "ruler of the universe" takes a special interest in them? How can a sane brain explain such a thing to itself?
Imbuing chickens with one's "sin?" The mind reels from the absurdity. Christians subscribe to this type of ideation as well, believing that Jesus "died for their sins." At least with the Jews it's only chickens. They should try with cats. Swinging a cat three times over your head should result in an interesting experience.
Of course, the premise unravels when you learn the rest of the story. The chickens are not "swung" around the head; they are held and gently circled around the head. There is no pain for the chicken involved. In fact, as the story itself reveals, they may even be held inside a box, so that they feel the movement even less. PETA's main beef (forgive the pun) is with the way the chickens are penned, in cramped crates, which is not done by the Chassidim, but by the chicken-raisers. Maybe PETA should use its dollars to subsidize the use of free-range chickens for Kapparot. I think that would be a nice compromise. Also, anyone who did minimal reading on the Kapparot practice is certainly aware that the "transference of sin" to the chicken is not really what happens. The chicken is used to feed the hungry before the fast of Yom Kippur, and this is the merit with which we hope to achieve atonement. They would also be aware that using money is only a last resort option if chickens aren't available. Does PETA stand outside the chicken farms giving out dollars? Why the focus on the Kaparot practice? Why the focus on shechitah when similar or worse complaints could be lodged against other meat plants? And as far as the efficacy of their campaign, do they have any success whatsoever? Did one Jew not use a chicken for Kapparot because they got an origami dollar from PETA? I'm not sure what it is, but I sense an underlying issue here beyond "the ethical treatment of animals". A word about religion (to Richard, although I think this relates to PETA as well): You ask great questions, but you ask them as if no religion has dealt with them. They would be more intelligent questions if you had done some research into what Judaism, for example, would respond. In other words, if you or PETA are trying to make an impression on religious people, you have to give arguments that work within that religions thought system. No religious Jew is going to listen when you say "Kapparot is wrong", unless you can prove it from within Jewish tradition. We have our reasons for trusting that tradition. Either argue against that trust (and respond to counter-arguments), or argue from within the tradition.
"Why the focus on shechitah when similar or worse complaints could be lodged against other meat plants? ... I sense an underlying issue here ..." Don't be paranoid, Fed Up. PETA catches everyone it can. Since the Dept. of Agriculture cannot be relied on to enforce its mandate because that would upset business, PETA acts as a volunteer posse, so to speak, in order to uncover cruel and reprehensible practices. The meat industry tends to forget that it is dealing with living beings, not objects, and often cuts corners to maximize profits.
The Rubashkins were cruel to both beast and man, and are deservedly in prison. They have cleverly exploited their worried Orthodox Jewish clientele who is always on the lookout for anti-semites, and have cast the prosecution for their shameless exploitation of their workers and cruelty to animals as an attack on the Jews. Nothing is further from the truth. The Agriprocessors tale is nothing but the usual story of greed and malfeasance in the meat industry that comes to light from time to time, reaching back to the days of Upton Sinclair and beyond. What is surprising (or perhaps not, given the usual Jewish paranoia) is how the Orthodox community defends the Rubashkins, even to the extent of publicly reviling Philip Schein who deserves thanks for uncovering the cruel and inhuman goings-on at Agriprocessors. What happened to the hot dog manufacturer of yore who "answer[ed] to a higher authority?" It turns out that wasn't necessary after all; Federal court was quite sufficient.
Thank you, Fed Up, for the sanitization of the kapparot ritual. Perhaps I may be excused for thinking that the chickens are "swung," considering that the chairman of the National Committee for Furtherance of Jewish Education said " 'shlugging kaparot,' or 'swinging chickens,' is a matter of religious freedom." And why do we pay all this attention to swinging chickens? Because Americans are suspicious of religious practices that involve animals, whether it's Santeria where chickens are sacrificed (for some admirable religious purpose, no doubt,) or kapparot. Chickens today, humans tomorrow? Such things have happened, and not that very long ago, either. As for the "transference of sin" issue, I can again only point to the article where it refers to "the blessing — which asks God to make the chicken the proxy for the person and carry his sins away." Does this mean that the author of the article can be dismissed as not having done even a "minimal reading on the Kapparot practice?" If there was no metaphysical significance to kapparot, why would anybody do it? (It's irresistible to draw parallels to the Christian religion where "the Lamb of God taketh away the sins of the world.")
I am not aware of any religion having "dealt" with the new realization of the increase of the universe's size and addressed the further diminution of humans in the scheme of things. After all, we didn't even know that other galaxies than the Milky Way existed until the 1920's, and religion tends to move quite slowly, if at all. So, has the Judaic religion addressed this new knowledge and man's further reduction in relative stature? Has there been any updates to "the Chosen People" doctrine since the known universe drastically increased? If so, I would follow to any URL to learn.