Disquietudes — Animals and Religion

Judaism - Disquietudes

4.5 Disquietudes: Traditions that Conflict with Teachings

I thought then and still think now that in Israel, of all places, the treatment of animals should be better than in countries that have no religious tradition of concern for animals. (Nina Natelson, CHAI and Hakol CHAI in Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions, 203-04)

Jewish ethics protect anymals, but there is room for improvement in aligning practice with teachings. For example, there is wide acceptance of anymal experimentation and many Jews choose an omnivorous or vegetarian diet despite pervasive, core teachings of kindness and respect for anymals. (For full coverage of Judaism and a vegan life, see 4.4 “Vegan: Point/Counterpoint.”) This portion of the book draws attention to two important disquietudes where anymals are concerned—places where teachings do not align with actions—a lack of humility and a blood ritual called kaporos.

Hen and girl at Freedom Farm, a vegan sanctuary in Moshav Olesh, Israel. (Image courtesy of Freedom Farm)

Page Outline

I. Humility”: A God-Centered Universe
II. Kaporos

A The Ritual of Kaporos
B Disquietudes of Kaporos
C Alternatives to Kaporos
Summary, Kaporos

Conclusion
Featured Sources

Free ranging, independent Macaque with baby. Macaque with baby in a research breeding facility. (Photos courtesy of Jo-Anne McArthur, We Animals Media.)

I. Humility: A God-Centered Universe

Humility is a central ethic of the Hebrew Bible, an ethic that is strongly reinforced in the creation narrative. But traditional interpretations of the story of creation reinforce human tendencies to exceptionalism and arrogance, overlooking deeper and more pervasive lessons of creaturely humility and commonality of Creation. A human-centered view of our place in the world is Aristotelian and not Hebrew: Human exceptionalism pushes against what creation conveys: Only God is separate, distinct, and more lofty than what has been created.

The Genesis creation story teaches that we are all God’s living creatures, fellow servants of God. We were made on the 6th day, along with other land-dwelling creatures, and nowhere does the creation story teach of hierarchy or “othering,” only of community. The Bible carries a strong ethic of humility and the creation story embeds this virtue in our bones.

“Creation: Day 6,” Joanne Yocheved Heiligman 2008. (Image courtesy of Jewish Art Quilts)

Critically, humans are not given dominion over the earth; we are only given (vegan) dominion over anymals. Moreover, the first man is assigned the task of serving and protecting creation with the aid of anymals and woman. Nothing about Genesis indicates that humans are the pinnacle of all that exists. God alone is the creator, the pinnacle, the core, the Life of all life. (For more on dominion, see 4.3.I.D. “Vegan Dominion” and for more on scriptures and diet, see 4.4 “Vegan: Point/Counterpoint,” especially 4.4.V. “Vegan Moral Imperative: AMORE—Five critical reasons to choose vegan,”).

Nor can we claim anything over other living creatures after death: We share both the breath of life and frailty of flesh (kol basar). All living beings perish and return to dust. Ecclesiastes 3 acknowledges humans as living creatures among living creatures with “no advantage”:

I said in my heart with regard to human beings that God is testing them to show that they are but animals. For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and humans have no advantage over the animals; for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. (Ecclesiastes 3:18-21)

The book of Job (Hebrew Bible) further affirms the animality of humanity and the sole sovereignty of God. In this narrative, when Job indicates anymals as lower and lesser, God leads him to recognize that he is their kin. When Job complains, “I am a brother of jackals, and a companion of ostriches” (Job 30:29), God does not disagree, but instead asks, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding” (Job 38:4). The Creator continues at length:

“Who has cut a channel for the torrents of rain,
and a way for the thunderbolt,
to bring rain on a land where no one lives,
on the desert, which is empty of human life,
to satisfy the waste and desolate land,
and to make the ground put forth grass?
“Has the rain a father,
or who has begotten the drops of dew?
From whose womb did the ice come forth,
and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven?” (Job 38:25–29)
God continues to build on the narrative:
“Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?
Do you observe the calving of the deer?
Can you number the months that they fulfill,
and do you know the time when they give birth,
when they crouch to give birth to their offspring,
and are delivered of their young? . . .

Who has let the wild ass go free?
Who has loosed the bonds of the swift ass,
to which I have given the steppe for its home,
the salt land for its dwelling place?
It scorns the tumult of the city;
it does not hear the shouts of the driver.
It ranges the mountains as its pasture,
and it searches after every green thing.

Is the wild ox willing to serve you?
Will it spend the night at your crib?
Can you tie it in the furrow with ropes,
or will it harrow the valleys after you?” (Job 39:1-10)

The falling of rain is greater than the giving of the Law, for the giving of the Law [is] a joy only to Israel, while the falling of rain is a rejoicing for all the world, including the cattle and the wild beasts and the birds. (Rabbi Tanhum b. Hiyya commenting on Midrash Tehillim, acknowledging our place in the universe, in Schochet, 146)

William Blake, 19th century. Detail of Behemoth and Leviathan (Plate 15). God reminds Job of the amazing creatures that the Almighty has created. (Image courtesy of Open Culture)

In this last portion, the Creator reminds Job, who seems to have forgotten his rightful place, that many aspects of nature and many anymals have been created intentionally, fully, and rightly outside of and beyond the realms of humanity (further restricting our vegan dominion) (Vischer 9).

The Creator provides a final and blunt reminder (Job 40:15) that we are creatures among creatures, stating of the hippopotamus, “which I made just as I made you.” At length, Job finally grasps his creatureliness in contrast with God’s divinity and recognizes that he is “brother of jackals, and a companion of ostriches” (Job 30:29). Here God informs that humans are not divine, but that we are living creatures among living creatures, created and sustained by the Almighty. If we see living creatures as lowly and lesser, so much the worse for humanity.

Michelangelo’s famous fresco, “Creation of Adam” (1508-1512, Sistine Chapel Ceiling, Rome, Vatican) showing the separation between human beings and the Creator. (Image courtesy of Wikiart)

II. Kaporos

The Day of Atonement, the most solemn religious fast of the Jewish year, is the last of the ten days of penitence that begin with Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year). Though practiced by a comparatively small number of Jews, every year on the eve of Yom Kippur, thousands of chickens are killed in a bloodletting ritual of atonement called Kaporos (“Kaparos,” “Kapparos,” “Kapparot”), meaning “atonement,” “scapegoat,” and “sacrifice.”

Muffie and Fluffie at United Poultry Concerns. (Photo courtesy of Karen Davis.)

A. The Ritual of Kaporos

Kaporos is sometimes performed at home, but many participants travel to Kaporos sites to participate in this blood-ritual of atonement. On site, they choose an adolescent chicken from among hundreds or thousands of birds stacked crate on crate. The birds are held with wings forcibly pinned behind their backs and swung three times over a supplicant’s head. During the ritual, the participant recites a prayer:

This is my exchange, my substitute, my atonement; this [bird] shall go to its death, but I shall go to a good, long life, and to peace. (Schwartz, “The Custom,” n.p.; also “Kaparot Ceremony,” n.p.)

The chicken’s throat is then slit and the value of the bird (or the body) may be donated to a charitable cause.

Jules was sweet-natured, warm and affectionate to the core. He was a natural leader, and the hens loved him. Our dusky brown hen Petal, whom we’d adopted from another sanctuary, was devoted to Jules. Petal had gnarly toes, which didn’t stop her from whisking away from anyone she didn’t want to come near her; otherwise she sat still watching everything, especially Jules. Petal never made a sound; she didn’t cluck like most hens - except when Jules left her side a little too long. Then all of a sudden, the silent and immobile hen with the watchful eye let out a raucous SQUAWK, SQUAWK, SQUAWK, that didn’t stop until Jules lifted his head up from whatever he was doing, and muttering to himself, ran over to comfort his friend. . . .

Jules developed a respiratory infection that left him weak and vulnerable. . . . His exuberance ebbed out of him and he became sad; there is no other word for the total condition of mournfulness he showed. His voice, which had always been cheerful, changed to moaning tones of woe. He banished himself to the outer edges of the chickenyard where he paced up and down, bawling so loudly I could hear him crying from inside the house. I brought him in with me and sought to comfort my beloved bird, who showed by his whole demeanor that he knew he was dying and was hurt through and through by what he had become. . . . One morning our veterinarian placed him gently on the floor of his office after a final and futile overnight stay. Jules looked up at me from the floor and let out a low groan of “ooooohh” so broken that it pierced me through. I am pierced by it now, remembering the sorrow expressed by this dear sweet creature, “Gentleman Jules,” who loved his life and his hens and was leaving it all behind. (Karen Davis, Ph.D., founder of United Poultry Concerns, “Gentleman Jules,” n.p.)

Gentleman Jules at United Poultry Concerns. (Photo courtesy of Karen Davis.)

B. Disquietudes of Kaporos

Trample my courts no more;
bringing offerings is futile;
incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation—
I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.
Your new moons and your appointed festivals
my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me,
I am weary of bearing them.
When you stretch out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your doings
from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
plead for the widow. (Isaiah 1:12-17)

There are at least five important reasons to end the bloodletting of Kaporos.

Kaporos is not mentioned in the Torah or Talmud and has never been required in Judaism. Scriptures do not instruct us to kill to atone for sins. The latter prophets speak strongly against blood sacrifice, suggesting alternatives that align with Jewish law and ethics, alternatives that fulfill the expectation that we serve and protect creation. Also see 4.3.I.F “Duties Assigned by God.” For more on scriptures and sacrifice, see 4.4.II “Sacrifice.”)

Kaporos brings suffering and premature death to chickens and, in the process, breaches core Jewish ethics and law, which require mercy, compassion, and tsa’ar ba’alei chaim (not to harm anymals). Footage taken onsite reveals that some of the chickens are alive and visibly suffering long after they have been “killed,” revealing a lack of halachic procedures: Jewish law requires a clean and complete kill. Additionally, the birds are often left in their cages without food or water, and in all weather conditions, for extended periods of time. Their bones (wings, toes, and sometimes legs) are frequently broken in handling or moving cages. This also breaches the requirement of tsa’ar ba’alei chaim and represents an abrogation of our responsibility to serve and protect creation. (For more on divinely ordained human responsibilities, see 4.3.I.F, “Duties Ordained by God.”)

Rescued hen at Freedom Farm, a vegan sanctuary in Moshav Olesh, Israel. (Photo courtesy of Freedom Farm.)

3. Kaporos expresses a cold indifference to suffering and loss of life. Scriptures teach that life must be respected and rests in the hand of the Creator: Chickens are God’s and not ours. Rather than atone for sins, destroying an innocent creature (that is not ours to destroy and especially for such brazenly selfish reasons) would seem much more likely to heap sin on sin.

Karen Davis of United Poultry Concerns with Nicholas & Nathaniel. (Photo courtesy of Holly Wills and United Poultry Concerns.)

4. Kaporos furthers the problem of food shortages and shows remarkable indifference to the hunger that plagues families around the world. After the ritual, bird after bird is thrown into trash bag after trash bag, each one soon overflowing. Even among those who eat chickens, there is not enough need to absorb thousands of dead birds, complete with feathers and blood-stains, on one day. More importantly, in a world where some nine million humans die annually for want of food, Jewish law and ethics do not permit raising tens of thousands of chickens (feeding them precious grains in the process) only to slit their throats and throw their bodies into trash bags to bloat and rot. Better to feed grains to hungry humans than to breed chickens for kaporos.

Volunteers picking vegetables with Israel’s leading food rescue and redistribution network, Leket Israel. (Photo courtesy of Steve Linde and The Jerusalem Post.)

Scriptures (including Isaiah 1:12-17, Amos 5:21-25, and Micah 6:6-8) require that we tend to the needs of humanity rather than sacrifice anymals. Human beings are put at risk by contemporary anymal sacrifice: Anymal markets have brought and continue to bring deadly diseases to humanity, including AIDS, SARS, Swine Flu, Bird Flu, and COVID-19. (For more on scriptures and health see 4.4.V.2 “Medical: Caring for Humanity.”)

Kaporos is, in effect, the largest live animal wet market in the country and the only one in which the customers handle the animals before the animals are killed. . . . According to a toxicologist who studied fecal and blood samples taken during Kaporos, the ritual “constitutes a dangerous condition” and “poses a significant public health hazard.” (Donny Moss, founder of TheirTurn.net, n.p.)

These chickens are packed into transport crates which are callously thrown to the ground when delivered, often breaking off the birds’ toes. The crates are stacked and remain that way for many hours or days. The birds have no access to food or water, and many die from dehydration, heat prostration, starvation or infection. The survivors are yanked out by their delicate wings (which often break) and swung around a practitioner’s head three times, then handed to a shochet (ritual slaughterer) who cuts their necks and throws them upside down into an inverted cone to choke on their own blood and die an agonizing death. (Rina Deych, founding member of Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos, “Draw the Line,” n.p.)

C. Alternatives to Kaporos

Most Jews honor the day of atonement using a ritual, “mentioned in many prayer books including the highly regarded Artscroll Siddur” (well-known and highly regarded prayer book) that spills no blood and preserves/enhances “the sense of repentance and the tradition of charity” (“A Wing” n.p.):

Money is put into a handkerchief which the person swings three times around his or her head while reciting: “This money shall go to charity, and I shall go to a good, long life, and to peace.” (“A Wing” n.p.)

In this ritual of repentance, “no innocent creature has to suffer and die for a person’s misdeeds” (“A Wing” n.p.), or (presumably) to appease or please the deity. Instead of breaching Jewish ethics or laws, Jewish teachings are honored and upheld because money used in the ceremony is sent to the poor.

Undercover investigations have revealed that ritually slaughtered kosher chickens allegedly earmarked for "the poor" were instead thrown into the trash. (Shamayim, “Kapparo,” n.p.)

Jewish Veg, teaching alternatives. (Image courtesy of Jewish Veg.)

Summary, Kaporos

Scriptures do not instruct humanity to attempt to foist sins off on innocents and then slit their throats. Scriptures do, however, require humanity to show compassion and mercy, and to protect health and life, which is the Creator’s and not ours. Ironically, those who perform the ritual of Kaporos breach many core Jewish ethics and laws while engaging in a ritual to atone for sins. It is not surprising that the vast majority of Jews engage in bloodless traditions of atonement on the eve of Yom Kippur.

Kapparot is not consistent with Jewish teachings and law. Repentance and charity can be better accomplished by using money instead of a slaughtered chicken. (Shlomo Goren, previously Israeli Chief Rabbi, n.p.)

To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. (Proverbs 21:3)

Not only does this practice break 15 city and state laws, but it violates mandates and imperatives in the Torah and Talmud, not the least of which is tsa’ar ba’alei chaim. (Rina Deych, founding member of Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos, n.p.)

Gently stroking a hen at Freedom Farm, a vegan sanctuary in Moshav Olesh, Israel. (Image courtesy of Freedom Farm)

Conclusion

A lack of humility constitutes a disquietude in the Jewish tradition with regard to our relationship with anymals. Human beings have tended to seek out places in scriptures that might support a view of the universe in which they are entitled to dominate and exploit to their advantage. Traditionally, the creation story of Genesis 1 and 2 has been interpreted in such a way as to support human exceptionalism, bolstering the human tendency toward arrogance. But scriptures teach that only God is separate and distinct while human beings are but living creatures among living creatures, servants of God (alongside jackals and ostriches). Though made in God’s image and given dominion over other creatures, human dominion is vegan and our God-given task is to “image” God (according to descriptions of God in Genesis), which requires compassion, mercy, and attentive care for anymals. Our duty is to humbly serve God by tending and protecting all that has been made, all that is God’s. Judaism is not a human-centered religion. Judaism is a God-centered religion.

Kaporos, practiced by a comparatively small number of Jews, is not a religious requirement and creates a second disquietude by violating core Jewish laws and ethics. Kaporos expresses cold indifference to God’s creatures (and to life itself), the antithesis of mercy and compassion that is the expectation of Jewish ethics. Kaporos violates tsa’ar ba’alei chaim. Moreover, Kaporos is wasteful while contributing to the problem of world hunger that is inherent in anymal agrictulture, and places the welfare of humanity at risk: Kaporos leads to anymal markets in crowded human communities, posing a threat to human health. Most fundamentally, it is not possible to atone for wrongdoing by doing wrong. An alternative ritual of atonement, using coins instead of chickens, is much more common and can easily replace the use of chickens in Kaporos.

Occasionally I would take her [a hen named Muffie] with me in the car, where at first she would always exercise her curiosity, looking out the window and poking about the seats and floor. Soon she would snuggle down next to me for the rest of the trip. To the end, she sat at my side, wherever we were. (Karen Davis, Ph.D., founder of United Poultry Concerns, “Muffie” n.p.)

A rooster rescued from slaughter. (Photo courtesy of Jo-Anne McArthur, We Animals Media.)

Featured Sources

Kemmerer, Lisa. Animals and Judaism. (Amazon, 2022, http://lisakemmerer.com/publications.html.)

Kemmerer, Lisa. Vegan Ethics: AMORE—5 Reasons to Choose Vegan. KDP, 2022.

Gershom, Yonassan. Kapporos Then and Now: Toward a More Compassionate Tradition. lulu.com, 2015.

Schwartz, Richard. “The Custom of Kapparot.” https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-custom-of-kapparot-in-the-jewish-tradition.

“Kapparo.” Shamayim: Jewish Animal Advocacy. https://www.shamayim.us/#!/page/kapparos. Also, “The Custom of Kapparot in the Jewish Tradition.” https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-custom-of-kapparot-in-the-jewish-tradition/.

“Kaporos.” United Poultry Concerns. https://www.upc-online.org/Kaporos/.

“A Wing and a Prayer: The Kapparot Chicken-Swinging Ritual.” United Poultry Concerns. http://upc-online.org/Kaporos/a_wing_and_a_prayer.html.

Davis, Karen (Ph.D.). “United Poultry Concerns’ Campaign to End Chicken Kaporos.” Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos. March 19, 2013. https://www.upc-online.org/Kaporos/ and http://www.endchickensaskaporos.com/museum.html.

Kemmerer, Lisa. “Kaporos: Multiculturalism, Ethics, and Anymals.” Animals, Race, and Multiculturalism: Contemporary Moral and Political Debates. Ed. Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues and Les Mitchell. Palgrave, 2017. 225-254. (Download here http://lisakemmerer.com/articles.html.)