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Feb 4, 2021
kapparos in Shvat/February
This story on Hamechadesh is pretty crazy. It reminded me of a scam that happens around Pesach-Shavuos time. In recent years a hakpada (I dont want to call it a chumra) has become trendy by which some people won't buy chametz form the stores if it had been sold to a non-Jew for Pesach. Rather, they insist that the chametz they buy after Pesach is from freshly ground post-Pesach flour.
The scam is that it takes time to make products from fresh flour but they need products in the store, so either they label improperly so people think they are buying fresh-ground flour products when it is really not, or they just put away all the chametz products that had been sold and take it out a few weeks later, closer to Shavuos when nobody is paying attention any longer.
This story sounds similar.
The story reported is that somebody advertised, in Bnei Braq, a very cheap price for chickens on sale with a very good hechsher.
When the people who ordered went to pick up their chickens they discovered that the chickens were labeled as having come from "kapparos" and had been shechted on September 24 2020, a few days before Yom Kippur.
Some people wanted to cancel the order saying that had they known it was from kapparos chickens they would not have ordered - they do not want to pay to eat the aveiros of people.
Another complaint is that the people who do kapparos buy the chickens and then donate it back to be distributed among the poor. Even if it is being sold cheaply to the public, what right do they have to do business with these chickens that were donated for the needy?
And, knowing how kapparos chickens are treated, maybe they are treifos.
The situation ended up in beis din. The beis din questioned representatives of the hechsher who explained what happened:
Organizations that arrange kapparos had asked the hechsher to allow them to slaughter the chickens under their hechsher. The hechsher agreed with several conditions:
1. there would be supervision on the shechita and also on the kapparos itself
2. the chickens would be sourced from an approved source with no concern of the chickens having been given shots and vaccines that might cause treifus problems
3. the chickens be handled well, not being tossed around, and nobody could bring their own chickens.
After the conditions were laid out, the hechsher people said that they supervised and the percentage of treifos was similar to the normal average. From a kashrus perspective there is nothing to worry about.
However, they do not allow these chickens to be sold on the open market in stores, as they are from kapparos. Many will not like the idea of it, and there might even be an issue of gneivas daas. So, special stickers were printed up, informing people that the chickens are from kapparos and they could not be sold in stores, only via the "chaluka" sales run by the organization. The organization preferred to give them to the poor but there were too many, so they had to be sold cheap and the money would be distributed to the poor..
Crazy story.
The question is, the kapparos are meant to be used (by the poor people) for the seuda before Yom Kippur. That tzedaka of feeding the poor is mean tot be a zchus before Yo Kippur. If the chickens are only sold 5 or 6 months later, how does it affect the people who swung those chickens over their heads? Did they get the kappara or not?
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I suspect that the anti maskers and anti vaxxers in particular would eschew such sin-laden chickens. I sincerely apologize in advance to anyone that will be offended by their misunderstanding of my comment.
ReplyDeleteThis story illustrates on many levels what is wrong with the current level of frumkeit. Too much to post about here.
ReplyDeleteBut one thought:
" they do not want to pay to eat the aveiros of people."
In the times of the Beis ha Mikdash, when sinners would bring a korban chatas or asham, after the parts that the were supposed to go onto the mizbeach were put there, the rest of the animal was eaten by the Cohanim, and that was a kapparah to the baalim. I guess today's frummocks are frummer than the Cohanim.
The fact that people believe that their aveirot are transferred to the chicken is reason enough to ban the practice altogether. That may be some religion, but it's not Judaism.
ReplyDeleteI am torn between the comments of Bored and Nachum. Bored says (and yasher koach for the example of כהנים אוכלים ובעלים מתכפרים, which is excellent albeit flawed, in that אכילת כהנים is a mitzva,) that the fear of kapparos chickens means that "today's frummocks are frummer than the Cohanim." Nachum argues, and says that the distinction is constitutive, not qualitative or quantitative, and "That may be some religion, but it's not Judaism." I am leaning towards Bored, because Judaism is so capacious, for better or for worse, that there is room even for this bizarre idea. As Reb Yosef Ber responded, when asked about a shocking statement in the ibn Ezra, "Yes, that is meenus, but I would still count the ibn Ezra to a minyan."
ReplyDeleteI think perhaps you misunderstood me. The tradition was to give the kaparos chicken to the poor for their meal. Does that mean that we are saddling the poor with our aveiros? That's absurd.
DeleteThe point was that by doing a mitzvah (in that case tsedaka) you are helping affect a kapparah.
The same thing is with the Cohanim -- the aveiros don't get transferred to the beheima. The mitzvah is mechaper, and part of the mitzva of the korban asham or chatas is achilas Cohanim.
Of course you are right. You don't need any raya from kodshim. And I understood your proof from Chatas, that eating a "sin offering" won't harm the person eating it. What I meant was that although the raya is conceptually excellent and true, there is a technical flaw in the raya. That is that by chatas, the kohanim are mekayeim the mitzva that kodshim need to be eaten, especially where koubm, as opposed to kapporos, where the consumer is not mekayeim any mitzvas achila pollo contaminado. So by kodshim, it could be that the mitzva is meigin. True, the whole discussion is just theater of the absurd. But I am a fan of great theater, especially toch shloshim of Purim. That's why I wrote an article arguing that women that are mechallel shabbos b'farhesya are chayav to wear Tefillin. https://beisvaad.blogspot.com/2012/12/women-that-are-obligated-to-wear.html
Delete