This Is My Atonement

“Dad, why do we perform kapparot with money and not with chickens?”
A childhood question I asked every year.

In order to experience the custom with chickens, we would go to Meah Shearim.

Loud clucking of chickens from every direction, striking scenes of the kapparot ritual.

Some people bought chickens, placed them in red mesh baskets, and went home to perform the custom there.
Others chose to begin and complete everything right there in the Meah Shearim market.

Men circling the chickens over themselves and their children, murmuring, “This is my atonement.”
Women and girls, slightly frightened, huddled together beneath the chicken swung above them by the head of the family.

A vibrant spiritual marketplace!!!

A brave little boy chasing after a chicken escaping between people’s legs, clucking loudly, flapping its wings, frightening many.

Only a few brief moments would pass before they would become an atonement.

The experience of slaughter, with all its laws — covering the blood, plucking feathers — everything happening at a dizzying pace.
And the chickens on their way to be salted according to Jewish law, to be cooked and eaten at a festive meal on the eve of Yom Kippur.

Even today, when I perform kapparot for myself with money on the eve of Yom Kippur, and say:

“This money will go to charity, and I will enter and go toward a good, long life and peace,”

I picture before my eyes the process I once witnessed with the chicken,
and I know, as our sages taught, that everything the chicken went through should have happened to me, to atone for my sins.

And with heartfelt supplication to the Creator of the world, I ask for forgiveness, pardon, and a favorable sealing.

Gmar Chatima Tova to everyone!!!