Chicken

If you didn’t think religion was weird enough—today I found a flier on the sidewalk on my walk to pick up my daughter with the words, “Repentance and charity can be better accomplished by using money instead of a slaughtered chicken.” I live in an orthodox Jewish neighborhood. Here’s what the flier is referring to: slaughtering chickens for Yom Kippur:

While many modern Jews consider the practice barbaric, some Jewish communities in eastern Europe and abroad observe the ritual of kapparot. A chicken is slain by a rabbi, then the owner of the chicken takes it by the legs and swings it around over his head, while reciting a prayer to God that all his sins during the year be transferred to the chicken.