Is There A Problem With Doing Chicken Kaparot Before Yom Kippur? (12 Minutes)

1:41That's using it as kaparah. It's usually a poor person who does not know anything. You know, the people who are slaughtering the chickens are not as careful as they are when slaughtering meat to sell in stores and so on. Therefore, the knife they are using could be pogum; it could be a non-kosher knife and... It could be a knife that's damaged a little bit, and if the knife is damaged even a little bit and the chicken feels even an ounce of pain, instead of being a means of kapara, you've now turned a kosher chicken into a neveila. You've made a sin; it ruins the whole thing. There's no kapara, there's no nothing. That's one thing. The second thing is that some people don't like this mitzvah. Some of the sages don't like the mitzvah because most people don't eat the chicken, and the chicken goes to waste. So this is a wasteful behavior. The chickens go to waste. So this is wasteful behavior. Unfortunately, some people who are koferim, those who oppose Judaism, and sadly, they are often Jews, seek ways to embarrass the Jewish communities. They visit Jewish areas and photograph the piles of chickens headed for the garbage. They point out how wasteful the community is, and what is considered a mitzvah becomes a chilul Hashem.

3:00You look online, and you'll see there are a bunch of pictures online of how these communities have, you know, garbage bins full of chickens that no one wants to eat, and it's disgusting. It's a big chillul Hashem. It's a desecration of Hashem's name. That's another reason why people don't like this. The sages don't like this minhag. Another thing is that Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt”l, said that he learned from his rebbeim that, in reality, it's not an honest thing. You're saying that your avonot, your sins, should go into this chicken, or this chicken should be a sacrifice for your avonot. But in reality, if it were truly fair, you'd need a farm of cows full of avonot, not just one chicken. This chicken isn't enough to contain all your avonot, all your sins. So, in reality, it's not such an honest thing. Still, it's a minhag (custom) that, although some people still hold by it, the ideal thing that most opinions hold by is that it's better for you to donate money, between 18 to 26 dollars per person.

4:17towards Torah, whether it is the Torah of someone learning Torah or someone getting other people to learn Torah. Whatever the case, if you have someone who learns Torah, you should donate between 18 to 26 dollars, which is approximately the value of a meal in America. In Israel, it's like 20 shekels, so it's much cheaper than here. But either way, we work in dollars in America, and such is life. So if you have, let's say, for example, a mother with four kids... And a husband, so it's six people, so it would be six times 18 or six times 26, whichever one you choose, and you would donate that. But you have to do it before Yom Kippur, not after Yom Kippur—before Yom Kippur. This is the ideal thing because even if you like the minhag of the chicken, there's still going to be much more benefit in donating the money to Torah. Because the chicken is just, in essence, something that only you benefit from, if there's any benefit at all, assuming everything is kosher and everything else. Whereas the Torah - let's say, for example, you donate $100, and let's say other people donate $100. A $100 donation sponsors 100 CDs, and...

5:32Out of the 100 CDs, let's say 80 of them are thrown in the garbage. 80 people get them, but they don't listen to them. 80 of them go in the garbage. So there are 20 left. 20 people actually listen to the CD. Out of the 20 people that listen to the CD, one person, one person did teshuva. Reality, it's much higher. But let's say one person out of every hundred CDs actually does teshuvah. Each person that does teshuvah, you just inherited three hundred and ten worlds in Olam Haba for each person. Every single mitzvah he does for the rest of his life goes into your account also. A person who truly returns to Hashem does so as a result of the CD. The one dollar that you sponsored, which was a hundred, but in reality, one dollar really worked. Each person is worth three hundred and ten worlds. Three hundred and ten worlds! This is why the CDs are an amazing investment for anyone who understands what they are able to achieve.

6:39People put in a CD, and they do teshuva. Sometimes, people don’t even listen to the whole CD; they listen to one or two shiurim and then watch the rest online. The CD is like a marketing flyer. Each one has 30-40 hours of Torah, and many people listen to all of it, but they also listen to the content online. It's not the same. We're going to have an app soon; it's not the same. We're also going to have a TV station soon; it's not the same. We have a new website. A lot of things are happening right now—many great things happening. So, we're giving people many things, many opportunities to access the Torah, but to get people to that TV station and... to get people to even know that the application exists, to get people to go to the YouTube channel or the website, more times than not, it starts with somebody else sponsoring a CD. Why? Because the guy looks at a picture, the CD looks kind of cool. He puts it in the car. What's the worst that could happen? I don't like it, I eject it, I throw it out of the car. I

7:41They put the CD in, the guy likes it, and the next thing you know, he's listening to shiurim instead of music. He's listening to shiurim instead of all the other nonsense in the world. He starts listening, he starts understanding, and he starts doing teshuva. Next thing you know, the guy starts davening. Next thing you know, he starts keeping Shabbat and starts keeping kosher. A lot of things happen, and... Things are going to happen, so this is why anyone that really cares about investment in Olam Ha'Ba, in my opinion, whatever my opinion's worth—one cent, two cents, three cents, whatever it's worth—I wouldn't want to do anything with my money other than invest in the cube, in my opinion. I know a little bit about investments. I spent almost 20 years dealing with investments, and so I know how to evaluate investments. So, I know how to evaluate investments, I think. Personally, I wouldn't do anything other than invest in kiruv simply because, based on return, nothing else can compare. Now, as an organization, we invest in multiple types of kiruv. We invest in the apps and the...

8:56In the movies and the CDs, we even have that we send money to every month in Yerushalayim because we learn their Torah, they help, they teach, and so on and so forth. There are a lot of things that the organization of B'ezrat Hashem does. But ultimately, if I had to advise you, for example, to invest in, I don't know, a stock or in kiruv, or invest in a business or in kiruv, or even invest in a Sefer Torah, a scroll of Torah, or in kiruv, or anything in the world—whatever you want to pick as an investment—it doesn't make a difference whether it's holy or not holy, whether it's Jewish or not Jewish. Anything else pales in comparison to kiruv, in my opinion. Because even if the success ratio is low, and it's 1% success ratio, which is abnormally low, usually the success ratio is closer to 20% or 25%. But let's say it's 1%. One person out of 100. I'm telling you, if you look at my phone, I have emails and messages every single day from people telling me that they changed their life. One woman yesterday or the day before...

10:05Warwick my whole life sent me a text saying: "Just after watching your videos, I decided to take off the wig and wear kisui rosh from now on because I know that everything you're saying is true. It is avodah zarah. And despite the fact that I bought a brand new wig for a few thousand dollars the day before I watched your video, I'm throwing it in the garbage." People send me things like, "I started keeping Shabbat." Another guy told a story about a marine who's in the middle of a war right now, both of them are doing Teshuva. He's in the middle of a war in Afghanistan somewhere, he's doing Teshuva. Different people, every single day, there's amazing stories. So kiruv works, Team Hashem works non-stop. They spread the Torah, whether it's through CDs, Facebook, or different other things. Baruch Hashem, a lot of good things are happening, so if you're telling me that...

11:06Invest in this versus a chicken. I don't care if the chicken starts talking, you understand? Even if the chicken starts talking and says, "You know what, yeah, yeah, I'm your sins, I'm everything. Don't worry, I'll take your sins." If the chicken starts talking and starts saying Kaddish, I still, I still wouldn't be convinced.