Amram Gaon explains that male Jews took a rooster and female Jews a hen on the day before the holiday of Yom Kippur. He writes: “He places his hand upon the head of the rooster, as a sort of
s’mikhah [the biblically required placing of one’s hands upon as animal that is being brought as a sacrifice in the Temple]. He lays his hands upon it and slaughters it immediately, following the rule prescribed for sacrifices, which is that the slaughtering of the sacrificial animal must follow immediately the ceremony of the laying of the hands.”
Why is Kapparot Seen as a Sacrifice?
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Originally, as previously stated, the ceremony was seen as a bribe that was offered to Satan, similar to the
Azazel bribe described in
Leviticus 16. A rooster was chosen for the bribe because (1) it was an animal that was not allowed to be sacrificed to God, and therefore an appropriate sacrifice for a devil, and (2) the masses thought that this bird resembled Satan: it had horns like Satan and its feet resembled the demon’s feet. The rooster was slaughtered with the sacrificial formality of laying of hands so that it would be accepted as a suitable sacrifice/bribe by Satan to induce the demon not to disparage Jews before God during Yom Kippur when Jews believed that their future fate was being determined by God in a heavenly judicial proceeding in which Satan served as prosecutor.
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Commenting upon the Babylonian Talmud,
Hullin 95b, Asher ben Jehiel (known as Asheri, c. 1259–1328) states that the ancient custom of
kapparot was to toss the entrails of the sacrificed rooster on the roof of one’s house. Like the water, the masses were convinced that the roof was a dwelling place of demons.
From the blog of Israel Drazin at The Times of Israel
blogs.timesofisrael.com