Oy Vey . . . What Do Chickens Have to Do with Yom Kippur?
Generally, when one associates “Jewish” with “chicken,” the idea of Jewish penicillin comes to mind. According to Bubbe (Yiddish for Grandmother), “A nice bowl of chicken soup will cure anything!”
However, as Yom Kippur approaches (beginning the evening of September 27 this year), in many ultra-Orthodox communities around the world, chickens have a much more important meaning than just an ingredient for soup.
The tradition pictured is called kaparot. It involves swinging a chicken over one’s head each year on the eve of Yom Kippur while reciting a prayer.
The prayer says, “This is my exchange, this is my substitute, this is my atonement. This chicken will go to its death, while I will enter and proceed to a good long life and to peace.” [i]
After reciting the prayer, the chicken is slaughtered. The chicken can then be eaten or as an act of charity given to the poor.
This prayer and tradition may seem very strange to Christians. However, in some observant Jewish communities, kaparot solves a problem that arose when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70AD by the Romans. With the only place sacrifices could rightly be offered removed, the rabbis were confronted with a dilemma: How could one obtain forgiveness without a Temple, the Holy of Holies, and the priesthood?
In the small city of Yavneh, located southwest of Jerusalem, a council of rabbis met in 91 AD to address the issue. It was decided that three mitzvot (literally, commandments), if done well enough, might obtain forgiveness for the participant. Those three good deeds were prayer, fasting, and the giving of alms.
However, in the 9th century Persian rabbis felt that mitzvot alone were not enough to ensure forgiveness.[ii] Perhaps they remembered that during the Temple days blood had to be shed. So they reckoned that with no Temple, perhaps God would look favorably upon the blood of a chicken and grant forgiveness.
The New Testament has the solution to the “problem” of forgiveness. As noted above, the Kaparot Prayer reads: “This is my exchange, this is my substitute, this is my atonement.” In contrast, 2 Corinthians 5:7 teaches us, “He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (HCSB). God exchanged Yeshua (Jesus) for our sin.
The New Testament reminds us of this in another place:
But the Messiah has appeared, high priest of the good things that have come. In the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands (that is, not of this creation), He entered the most holy place once for all, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow, sprinkling those who are defiled, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of the Messiah, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to serve the living God? (Hebrews 9:11-14 HCSB).
Yeshua’s blood is effectual for forgiveness while the blood of goats and bulls, and yes . . . even chickens . . . is not.
What good news the above passages give to anyone seeking forgiveness! Rather than doing something for God in hopes of being accepted, forgiveness is provided to those willing enough to accept it! Yeshua is “. . . my exchange . . . my substitute . . . my atonement.”
Amen and amen.
Written by Winn, LIFE Staff