Kapparot Where Everyone Stays Alive — Including the Chicken

Teshuvah, Tzedakah, and the Moral Evolution of a Jewish Tradition

After Shabbat ended, following Havdalah, I was told that I could perform kapparot in one of two places: on Avenue J near East 29th Street, or on President Street in Crown Heights.

I chose Avenue J simply because it was closer. At that point, my decision was geographical, not moral. I was not going there as a protester, and I had not yet decided to challenge the custom. I arrived prepared to perform kapparot with a chicken, as many Jews do before Yom Kippur.

Avenue J was crowded with people and cars. I expected to spend a long time searching for parking, but I found a space almost immediately, very close to the kapparot site.

At first, I simply considered myself fortunate. Later, I understood why that nearby parking space mattered: it brought me directly to the place where the birds were being carried out. I saw what was happening with my own eyes.

Had I parked several blocks away and hurried straight into the line, perhaps I would not have stopped to look carefully. But I was right there. I saw everything, and once I had seen it, I could no longer pretend that I had not.

The Eyes on Avenue J

Young chickens were being taken from their crates, lifted, and carried in circles over people’s heads. Their eyes were frightened.

According to the traditional practice, a man uses a rooster and a woman uses a hen. But these birds were so young that it was difficult to tell which were young roosters and which were hens. They had barely begun to live. The hens had not laid their first eggs. The young roosters had not reached maturity. Their natural lives were only beginning, and yet those lives were already about to end.

That was what struck me.

Before me was not merely a religious symbol or an object required for a ceremony. Before me was a living creature that was afraid and wanted to live.

The chicken knew nothing about kapparot. It had not committed my sins, spoken my hurtful words, or made my wrong decisions. It was innocent.

I looked into the eyes of those birds and felt that something did not add up.

As an Animal Chaplain, I cannot separate spirituality from the way we treat living creatures. If a religious act awakens mercy within us, it brings us closer to God. But if our desire for spiritual relief causes us to stop noticing the fear of a defenseless creature, then we must at least be willing to stop and ask ourselves a question.

And I stopped.

A Custom, Not a Commandment

Standing there on Avenue J, I took out my phone and began reading about the history of kapparot.

I learned that killing a chicken for kapparot is not a commandment found in the Torah. It is not a Temple sacrifice, and it is not a prerequisite for receiving forgiveness on Yom Kippur. Written evidence of the custom appears in the early medieval period, during the age of the Babylonian Geonim.

More importantly, I discovered that the practice had never been universally accepted within Jewish tradition.

Great rabbinic authorities objected to it, including Ramban — Rabbi Moses ben Nachman — and Rashba, Rabbi Shlomo ben Aderet. In Shulchan Aruch⁠, Orach Chaim 605:1⁠, Rabbi Yosef Karo wrote that the custom should be prevented. Among the concerns was its resemblance to non-Jewish rites and to sacrificial practices outside the Temple in Jerusalem.

Rema — Rabbi Moses Isserles — defended kapparot as an established Ashkenazi custom. The Arizal later invested it with profound Kabbalistic meaning, strengthening its place in many Jewish communities.

Jewish tradition therefore preserved not only the custom, but also the dispute surrounding it. Traditional Jewish sources acknowledge both the objections of major authorities and the accepted option of performing kapparot with money.⁠

This was important to me. I realized that my discomfort did not place me outside Judaism. Long before I arrived on Avenue J, great Jewish sages had raised serious questions about this practice.

I also learned that kapparot could be performed with money, which would then be given as tzedakah.

I had a choice.

Forty Dollars and a Life

I asked:

“Can I perform kapparot with money if I do not want a chicken to be killed?”

I was told:

“Yes. Twenty dollars.”

I gave twenty dollars. A short time later, a young man came out holding a chicken. Perhaps he thought that I still wanted the bird to be carried over my head, even if I did not wish to witness its slaughter.

I told him:

“No. I want to perform kapparot with money.”

He agreed.

I performed the ritual using money. Then I handed him another twenty dollars.

He looked surprised.

“Why?” he asked. “You already gave twenty dollars.”

“I want to give another twenty,” I answered. “For tzedakah.”

He smiled, thanked me, and accepted it.

Instead of twenty dollars, I gave forty. And I felt an unexpected sense of peace.

It was not because I believed that I had purchased forgiveness for forty dollars. Teshuvah cannot be bought. I felt peace because my kapparot ended not with a death, but with an act of giving.

I gave more than I had been asked to give, and I did not agree to let a bird be killed for the sake of my spiritual purification.

The chicken brought out for me was not killed for my ritual. I do not know what happened to that particular bird afterward, but I do know that its death did not become a condition of my repentance.

In that moment, everyone involved in my kapparot remained alive — including the chicken.

And I felt that I had acted correctly before God and before my own soul.

Teshuvah Cannot Be Outsourced

I understand that serious rabbinic teachers do not claim that a person can mechanically transfer sins to a chicken and instantly become innocent. Even traditional defenders of kapparot emphasize that the ceremony itself cannot atone for wrongdoing without genuine teshuvah.

That makes my question even stronger.

If forgiveness does not come through the death of the bird, but through the repentance of the human being, why does the bird need to die?

My sins belong to me. A chicken should not be made to answer for my pride, my failures, or the harm I have caused. I must recognize those things myself, ask forgiveness, repair what I can, and make a sincere commitment to live differently.

Spiritual responsibility cannot be transferred to another creature. The work of the soul cannot be outsourced.

The chicken cannot carry away my sins. But encountering that chicken may reveal one of them: my willingness to treat another life as expendable when doing so makes my own spiritual experience easier.

Teshuvah begins when a person stops defending himself.

Pride says, “I am already right.”

Teshuvah says, “I can become better.”

Even a tzaddik never stops growing. Repentance does not diminish a person. It raises that person to a new spiritual level. Admitting an error does not destroy faith. Sometimes it is the very act that makes faith real.

In the Unetaneh Tokef prayer, we proclaim that teshuvah, prayer, and tzedakah can transform the severity of the decree. We do not say that the death of a defenseless bird cleanses the human soul. We speak of repentance, turning toward God, and giving to others.

That is why kapparot with money did not feel to me like a weakened version of the ritual.

It felt like a morally fuller outcome: the person repents, someone in need receives assistance, and the chicken remains alive.

Everyone lives.

“A Righteous Person Knows the Soul of His Animal”

The Book of Proverbs teaches: Yodea tzaddik nefesh behemto — “A righteous person knows the soul of his animal.”

The verse uses the word nefesh: soul, life, inner being. A righteous person does not merely feed an animal. He notices its fear, pain, and needs. He understands that the creature before him is not an object.

After the Flood, God established a covenant not only with Noah and his descendants, but with “every living creature.” Animals were included in that covenant. In the story of Creation, they are called nefesh chayah — living beings. Humanity was placed in the Garden not only to cultivate it, but also to guard it.

Human beings may occupy a unique place in Creation. But a higher position should bring greater responsibility, not an unlimited right to dispose of those who are weaker than we are.

An animal cannot hire an attorney, consult a rabbi, or ask us to stop. A chicken cannot defend itself. Our true character is often revealed in the way we treat those who have no power to resist us.

It is easy to be kind to someone whose opinion matters to us. It is more difficult to show mercy to a creature that cannot thank us, reward us, or tell anyone what we have done.

But I believe that Heaven sees this too.

I cannot promise that every Jew who spares a chicken will receive a special personal blessing. I do not know the calculations of Heaven. But my conscience and common sense tell me that mercy toward one of God’s creatures cannot be foreign to God.

Not Abolishing the Tradition, but Elevating It

I am not calling for the spiritual idea of kapparot to be discarded.

The custom contains an important message: before Yom Kippur, stop. Remember the fragility of life. Confront your actions. Recognize your mistakes and change direction.

But a noble intention does not require every historical form to remain unchanged forever.

Tradition is not a museum exhibit. It lives with the people who carry it, and it can become morally deeper. We can preserve its spiritual heart while removing suffering that is not necessary.

Traditional defenders of kapparot emphasize that the chickens should be handled gently and that their meat should be given to people in need. I do not question the sincerity of those intentions.

But money can also feed people in need — without requiring another life to end.

A day on which many chickens are slaughtered can become a day on which Jews give more tzedakah and spare lives. The custom would not disappear. It would rise to another moral level.

We would not abandon teshuvah. We would make it more honest.

We would not abandon tzedakah. We would give more.

We would not abandon tradition. We would preserve its meaning while removing a death that is not required.

To me, this is not the destruction of Judaism.

It is moral evolution within Judaism.

A Path of Errors and Corrections

Sometimes I ask myself: Why did the final Redemption not arrive in the days of King David? Why did it not arrive in the days of King Solomon, the Arizal, or the Baal Shem Tov? Did those generations not contain enough righteousness, wisdom, prayer, and holiness?

Perhaps the greatness of individual people is not enough. Humanity itself must become ready for the world of Mashiach. We must learn not only to speak about mercy, but to choose mercy when a weak and defenseless living creature stands before us.

I do not claim to know why Mashiach has not yet come. I cannot know the design of Heaven. But perhaps the road to Redemption includes the moral maturation of humanity.

That maturation does not happen instantly. It advances through searching, error, recognition, and correction.

Scientific discoveries that eventually receive Nobel Prizes are often preceded by years of failed hypotheses and unsuccessful experiments. A recognized and corrected mistake does not invalidate the journey. It makes the next step possible.

The same may be true of our spiritual development.

Human beings searched for a vivid expression of repentance. They created a ceremony in which the death of a bird could confront a person with the gravity and fragility of life. Perhaps this language spoke powerfully to a particular time.

But then conscience asks the next question: If teshuvah is supposed to make me kinder, why must an innocent creature die for it?

At first, we may believe that purification requires another being’s death. Later, we understand that it requires a transformation of our own lives.

This is not a reason to mock earlier generations. It is a reason to continue the spiritual search they began. They sought atonement. We continue that search, correcting the form when our conscience reveals a moral contradiction within it.

An error that is recognized and corrected can itself become part of teshuvah.

That is what happened to me on Avenue J. I arrived prepared to perform kapparot with a chicken. Then I looked into the eyes of those young birds and understood that killing was not necessary.

Perhaps this is the moral evolution to which I personally arrived.

Are We Truly Ready for Mashiach?

The prophet Isaiah presents an image of the Messianic world in which the wolf will live beside the lamb, the lion will eat straw, and living creatures will no longer destroy one another.

If we truly await such a world, its beginnings should become visible in our own choices.

Ending the killing of chickens for kapparot would not automatically bring Mashiach. But it could be a sign that we are becoming morally ready for the world we ask God to create.

A wise rabbi from Dnipro once expressed an uncomfortable thought. We speak constantly about wanting Mashiach, but do we really want him to come now? Or do we first want to pay off our homes, take another vacation, marry off our daughters, complete our projects — and then allow Mashiach to come?

We are prepared to raise tzedakah for projects connected with Mashiach. But are we prepared for Mashiach himself?

Are we willing to surrender our pride, ambitions, status, and familiar comforts? Are we ready to leave behind the secure lives we have built in Crown Heights, Borough Park, Monsey, Argentina, Brazil, Russia, and elsewhere if Redemption requires an entirely different way of living?

This question is not directed only at other people. I first asked it of myself.

My answer was yes.

I want Mashiach to come — not after all my personal plans have been completed, and not at some more convenient time.

Let him come soon.

During kapparot, I personally asked God for this.

If we are waiting for an age in which violence between living creatures will end, perhaps our preparation begins with the smallest life we are capable of sparing today.

Choose Life

I do not condemn those who perform kapparot with chickens. Every person follows a tradition, a teacher, and a conscience. I understand that many Jews experience the practice as ancient and sacred.

But respecting another person’s choice does not require me to remain silent about my own.

I studied the opinions of great Jewish authorities. I learned that Ramban, Rashba, and Rabbi Yosef Karo opposed the practice. I learned that there is a recognized way to perform kapparot with money. I looked into the eyes of a living creature and made my decision.

I chose tzedakah.

I chose teshuvah.

I chose not to place my guilt upon a defenseless bird.

I chose life for the chicken and life for myself.

In the Torah, God speaks through Moses: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore, choose life.”

Before Yom Kippur, we ask to be inscribed in the Book of Life. For me, it became impossible to ask for life while consenting to the death of another living creature for the sake of my own spiritual comfort.

I did not perform a heroic act on Avenue J. I simply stopped, looked, thought, and made a different choice.

Instead of twenty dollars, I gave forty.

Instead of death, I chose tzedakah.

Instead of habit, I chose conscience.

I arrived intending to perform kapparot.

I left understanding that no one needed to die.

Perhaps humanity’s road toward Mashiach is built from small corrections like this. First, we make mistakes. Then conscience awakens. Finally, we correct the error and choose life.

That is teshuvah.

That is moral evolution.

And that is kapparot where everyone stays alive — including the chicken.