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Kapparot
Mea Shearim, the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Jerusalem on the evening before Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement: The “Kapparot” ritual is practiced by Orthodox Jews. The idea is to transfer the sins of a person to a fowl which is afterwards slaughtered and given to charity for the poor. A rooster (for men) or a hen (for women, or both a rooster and hen for a pregnant woman) is swung above the person’s head three times while the following is chanted:
“This is my exchange, this is my substitute, this is my atonement. This rooster/hen will go to its death, while I will enter and proceed to a good long life and to peace.”
As Kapparot is not mentioned in the Torah or Talmud, it is controversially discussed in the Orthodox communities. Some rabbis claim that it has a superstitious and non-Jewish origin, while others encourage it as a mystical tradition.
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