In another few days a ritual will take place that I have never seen, but have mixed feelings about. What could be called 'chicken whacking'.
If you are Jewish, you already know that I speak of waving an angry chicken overhead on the day before Yom Kippur.
Why do I have mixed feelings about it?
Not what you might think - it does not matter to me that a chicken is unnecessarily made indignant, and its future as food does not bother me either. I am not a vegetarian, and my affection for chickens is entirely gustatory.
Nor does the anger of the chicken disturb me - it is good for a chicken to feel a more complex emotion than "mm, grub, cluck".
[A chicken is a remarkably dull animal with only the most simplistic and superficial weltanschauung. Being angry, for once in its life, is probably good for the chicken.]
The slaughter of the bird following its brief time airborne does not bother me. The blood from the cut throat of the animal flowing out represents the sins of the person above whose head the bird swung now flowing away, according to one interpretation. I'm okay with that symbolism.
What bothers me is the superstitious taam of the entire affair. It shmeks of voodoo. Which the original scape goat did not quite. There's a difference between an act done for a collective, and witnessed as such by that collective, and an act done for oneself.
Rich symbolism, versus self-centeredness. It seems.
Also, and this is perhaps the crux of the matter, chickens have notoriously jumpy guts.
I remember as a child once chasing a chicken around the yard, and being amazed at how often in that short stretch the creature vacated its bowels. Little stinky puddles of smoo.
I therefore do not accept that swinging such a dangerous fowl over one's head can be "cleansing".
Meh, bring a rain coat.
[Or, instead of a chicken, which is a personal substitute for the ez ozel anyway, go whole hog; swing a goat - one for each member of your family.]
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NOTES FOR THE BAFFLED:
Shlugn kapores = the waving of a live chicken (or its monetary equivalent) three times over the head of a person, while chanting: "zeh chalefosi, zeh tamorosi, zeh kaperosi. Zeh hotarnegol yelech le misoh, va'ani elech le chayim tovim arukim ve shalom" (This is my substitute, this is my commutation, this is my atonement. This rooster will go to death, and I will go to a life both long and peaceful).
The father of the family first does this for himself, and once he has 'atoned', and is newly 'guilt-free', he can do it for all other members of the household, using a chicken of the same gender as the person underneath. For a pregnant woman one uses two birds, one of each gender, for both the woman and the unborn child in the womb.
Afterwards the birds are slaughtered, and the flesh or its monetary equivalent given to the poor.
Just think how much more the poor would appreciate a nice sinful goat instead.
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7 comments:
If you are Jewish, you already know that I speak of waving an angry chicken overhead on the day before Yom Kippur.
Not so - outside of traditional Orthodox circles, this is an entirely unknown ritual. Suggesting either that it is of recent provenance, or was abandoned by anyone attempting to "pass" in a more secular world. Bad Cohen and I were startled (and highly amused) when we learned of this custom earlier this year.
Frankly, it smacks of denying personal responsibility for our sins, to me, and seems to abrogate the sacrificial privileges of the kohanim to ordinary Jews that are both inappropriate, and anachronistic. No temple, no sacrifice. No sacrifice, no atonement - that's why we have prayer.
Being angry, for once in its life, is probably good for the chicken.
LOL!
The shulchan aruch says this is a minhag shtus that should be abolished, and it is the Rema who defends it as a practice, and it is upon him whom kapparos-shluggers rely.
Ksiva vchasima tova!
"The whole hog"? Speaking as a goy, why not Hogswinging? It has a nicely bucolic sound to it, and I'm almost certain I remember it from L'il Abner. Also, by me, chickens are vegetables.
I agree with Tsiporrah: no temple, no sacrafice. As a minhag I prefer tashlikh on Rosh HaSjannah.
A few months ago I read about this custom, but as a practice in Mexico or Guatemala. Now I no why the author made the connection with a Jewish custom.
To me, chicken are not only vegetables. I like them. As a child I had 39 of my own.
As a (truly for want of a better word) "Noahite" I too find this tradition silly and cruel.
It must surely be possible to put the bad karma into an inanimate object such as a stone or a clapped out Toyota - after all the chicken has a nefesh and a destiny of its own "oder nicht?"
the upside is that the chicken is given a brief taste of orbital flight - its 1st & last - and I welcome any explanation of the link I feel may exist between Yom Kippur & Yummy Kip
I like the idea of the bad karma put into a clapped out old Toyota.
I balk at the thought of waving one around my head.
The author said it. "Jumpy Guts" It's for that reason I do not allow any birds on me or around me.
KR
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