Chaim Amalek writes: "There is an article on kapporos in today’s NY Post and a few videos on the practice on youtube. Where do you stand on this practice – do you hold with RAMBAM, who declared it to be pagan in origin, or are a chicken swinger?"
I hold with the Rambam about chicken swinging and I hold with the Vilna Gaon opposing tashlich. I also don’t grab my tzitzit and kiss them repeatedly in the mornings during the recitation of the three paragraphs following the shma.
I don’t do all of the above for the same reason I like to get blowjobs (though I won’t let myself get them anymore because the Torah prohibits them) — they require no effort on my part.
I’m tired most of the time and I don’t like to expend effort on sex, women, religion or anything that does not gain me the maximum amount of attention (which gives me vital energy).
August 31, 2007 — Rabbis in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish and Hasidic communities are taking a hard look at an annual religious ceremony in which the faithful swing live chickens over their heads.
Called kapparot, the fowl-whirling event occurs each year between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur – which take place next month – and is meant to transfer the sins of the believer to the chicken, which is then sacrificed.
But after a series of troubling incidents, in which birds were found improperly dumped after the ceremony, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has its feathers in a bunch.
They’ve been circulating a video showing the chickens being tossed around like garbage in filthy conditions after a ceremony.
