This is a poster announcing the time and place for the annual custom of kapparot before Yom Kippur. The red poster with black lettering announces that the Ohr Hachayim institutions will be performing kapparot from Wednesday, 5 Tishrei until Saturday night, 9 Tishrei, 15–18 September, 1999. It also states that skilled and God-fearing ritual slaughterers (shochet) will be present to ritually slaughter the chickens after they are used in the kapparot ceremony. The ceremony will take place until after the selichot prayers after Shabbat. Selichot are special prayers for forgiveness said in the month of Elul leading up to Rosh Hashanah and during the High Holy Days.
The kapparot ceremony involves the swinging over a chicken over one’s head three times while reciting a selection of texts and represents the symbolical transfer of sins to the chicken. The chicken is then slaughtered and given as tzedakah to a needy family. In recent times, many disagree with the use of chickens and coins are used in their place.
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Kapparot – This ceremony takes place in the days leading up to Yom Kippur in some Jewish communities and involves the custom of swinging a chicken over one’s head to symbolically transfer one’s sins to the chicken. The chicken is then slaughtered, and the meat is donated to a needy family. An alternative option is to use coins wrapped in a handkerchief instead of a chicken and to then donate the money to charity. Over the years there has been much rabbinical discussion about to the performance of this ritual. There are those who object due to concern for the suffering of the animals; others worry that people will not truly repent if they know they can simply transfer their sins to an animal. While performing kapparot is not mentioned in the Torah or the Talmud, giving tzedakah (charity), especially during the ten days of repentance, is one of the three ways of doing teshuvah (repentance) along with prayer and fasting.
Yom Kippur – Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the holiest day of the Jewish year. The date of Yom Kippur is 10 Tishrei, and it marks the end of the ten-day period beginning with Rosh Hashanah which is called the High Holy Days and the Ten Days of Repentance. According to tradition, God evaluates each person’s life and writes their name in either the Book of Life or the Book of Death during the Ten Days of Repentance; on Yom Kippur, the books are sealed. While reflection and prayer take place throughout the ten days, Yom Kippur is the most solemn day, and it is traditional to pray, fast, and refrain from bathing and wearing leather shoes. It is also traditional to give tzedakah (charity), during this time period. Another unusual custom is wearing a tallit for all of the prayers, when it is usually only worn during the day, and in some communities men wear a special white robe named a kittel. There are five services on Yom Kippur, beginning with the Kol Nidrei prayer and the Maariv service in the evening. Prayers are resumed the following day with Shacharit (morning service) and the Musaf (additional service) which includes a description of the special ceremonies that took place in the Temple on Yom Kippur. Later in the day is the Mincha service, during which the Book of Jonah is read, and the day comes to close with the Neilah service, considered to be the final opportunity to ask God to be written in the Book of Life, which ends with the congregation saying the Shema and the blowing of the shofar.
Selichot – Selichot, meaning forgiveness, are prayers said in the days leading up to the High Holy Days and on fast days. The selichot prayers consist of piyutim (liturgical poems) and verses from the Torah and are said at midnight or at dawn. In most Sephardi communities the selichot are said every day from the beginning of the month of Elul, while the Ashkenazi tradition is to say selichot from the Saturday night before Rosh Hashanah. In recent years, with the revival of interest in piyutim, many people in Israel attend selichot also for cultural reasons.
