Kapporot

Kapporot Ahead of Yom Kippur, many Jews carry out the Kapparot ritual, where they swing a chicken above their heads to transfer their sins to it before slaughtering it. The practice of Kapparot is to swing a chicken over one’s head while praying, though it can be substituted with money. Men take roosters and women take hens. Pregnant women use three chickens, one hen for herself, another hen for if her child will be a girl, and one rooster for if her child will be a boy. (Jerusalem Post) Kapparot (Hebrew: כפרות, Ashkenazi transliteration: Kapporois, Kapores) is a customary atonement ritual practiced by some Orthodox Jews on the eve of Yom Kippur. This is a practice in which either money is waved over a person’s head and then donated to charity, or else a chicken is waved over the head and then slaughtered in accordance with halachic rules and donated to the hungry. PETA has made the claim that more than two-thirds of all the slaughtered birds are simply thrown in the trash, while t... Source: Vanessa Beeley