[Avodah] Trashing Kapporos - Kapporah Gain, or Kapporah Deficit?

Micha Berger via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Thu Sep 28 12:03:03 PDT 2017


On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 03:21:35PM +0000, Professor L. Levine wrote:
: http://tinyurl.com/yd5fbx4v
...
: This article does not mention that sometimes the chickens are badly
: mistreated before they are used for Kapporas...

That's not an argument against kaparos... That's an argument against
being careless with the chickens one uses for them. Similarly, the fact
that many chickens end up wasted is an argument against wasting chickens,
not the minhag.

This conversation came up when my kids were in the younger grades, and
the schools they went to felt obligated to educate them in this minhag.

The SA rules (OC 605:1) rules yeish limnoa haminhag.

In the BY he cites the Mordechai on Yuma, the Pisqei haRosh, the Tashbeitz
as teaching the minhag of kaparos. Teshuvos haRashba says it reached
them from Ashkenaz, and R' Hai said it was minhag. So why does he ban it?

Because he holds like the Ramban, that the minhag is darkhei emori.
(It is also possible he agreed with the Rashba, and didn't see a need
to import a questionable Ashkenazi minhag.)

And the Rama notes the solid background for "minhag vasiqin", and
"ve'ein leshanos".

Teh Be'eir Heiteiv (#4) prefers using money (citing the Shelah and the
Maharil), as giving an ani money is less humiliating than giving them
a chicken. He also write that the Shelah says you can't use ma'aser money.

Also, the Rama's only reason for keeping the minhag going is its age --
we shouldn't drop a minhag vasiqin just willy nilly. This doesn't apply
to someone whose family has for generations been using money, a bean
plant growing in a palm-wicker basket (Rashi, Shabbos 81b "hai parpisa")
or not been doing kapparos at all.

GCT!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The same boiling water
micha at aishdas.org        that softens the potato, hardens the egg.
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Fax: (270) 514-1507      but rather what you are made of.



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