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

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Sep 29, 2017 at 04:33:13PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
: >Well, let's pull up the mar'eh maqom I cited, BH OC 605:4, d"h "bemamon".
: >     And this is better than giving the ani a rooster, for he will
: >     be mevayeish (Shelah, Maharil). And he should be nizhar to give
: >     maaser; he shouldn't take this pidyon from maaser money, rather
: >     from his own money. (Shelah)
: 
: As I pointed out before, that is not talking about how to do
: kaporos, it refers only to what to do with the chicken afterwards.
: Kaporos cannot be done on money.  The idea makes no sense.  Kaporos
: is done on a chicken, and then there is a separate minhag to give
: tzedaka, and it's better to give money than the chicken.

Only because you think we're switching topics from the pidyon of the person
to the pidyon of the person's pidyon.

: >Actually, the tzedaqah of the chicken that the BH he tells you is
: >inferior to giving money, is the meilitz yosher mini elef we refer
: >to in the text of kaparos. Right before YK we do one last mitzcah as a
: >meilitz yosher before going into din.
: 
: Since when?  Where did you get that idea?  The language of the Rama
: and the nos'ei kelim is very clear, and there is no mention at all
: of a connection between kaparos and tzedaka...

The Be'er Heiteiv assumes that if you're not giving the poor
person the money, you'd be giving them the more embarassing chicken.

(We also know from the line said immediately before kapparos are about
a meilitz yosher testifying that the person isn't all bad, which makes
no sense of this minhag weren't all about doing a mitzvah.)

As you yourself write, epmashsis added:

: The chicken is the pidyon of the person.  Zeh chalifasi.   Later,
: instead of GIVING THE CHICKEN TO TZEDAKA AS IS THE MINHAG, one can
: buy it, like pidyon maaser sheni.


: >: No, it isn't.  "Minhag vasiqin" doesn't mean an old minhag, it means
: >: a minhag of the ancients.  He's not appealing to its age but to its
: >: pedigree....
: >
: >Source?
: 
: It's what the word means.  Vasikin is not an adjective, it's a
: plural noun.  It doesn't mean "ancient", it means "the ancients".

Yes, something done a long time ago is something done by people who lived
a long time ago. That is an appeal to age. I was asking where you find
"vasiqin" as a reference to pedigree, that it can't just be an old custom
of the masses. Vasiqin doesn't mean tzadiqim or talmdei chakhamim.

Minhag vasiqin means a custom kept by people who lived long ago. Which
is close enough to "old mminhg" to have made this digression pointless.
The Rama is advocating we keep this minhag and all he mentions in its
defense is its age. An argument that loses much of its thrust once the
chain was already broken for a couple of generations.

Gut Voch!
-Micha

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