JUST ANOTHER CHICKEN STORY

The chicken is roasting with the lovely vegetables in the oven...the rice is ready...the stuffed zuccini boats smell gorgeous...the salads need making...the cakes are done...and I have a window of time to write and wish you once again a sweet new year and an easy fast.

One of the traditions of Yom Kippur is kaparot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaparot

Kapparos or Kaparot (Hebrew: כפרות) is a traditional Jewish religious ritual that
takes place around the time of the High Holidays.
Classically, it is performed by swinging a live chicken around one's head three
times, symbolically transferring one's sins to the chicken. The chicken is then slaughtered and donated to the poor, to be eaten at the pre-Yom Kippur feast.[1]
In modern times, Kapparos is performed in the traditional form mostly in Haredi communities. Members of other communities tend to perform this ritual with charity money substituted for the chicken, swung over one's head in similar fashion.
As the chicken (or money) is swung about the head, the following paragraph is traditionally
recited:
This is my exchange, this is my substitute, this is my atonement.
(This rooster will go to its death / This money will go to charity), while I
will enter and proceed to a good long life and to peace.[2]

Rosh HaShanah 1972. I was married ten months. I was almost seven months pregnant. My mother-in-law called me over to her house. No phones at the time. My mother-in-law had the one television set and Yossi the Butcher's mother had the one phone in the neighbourhood. So when my husband came home that night he told me that his mother wanted to see me in the morning.

'Merilly (that was as close as she ever got to getting my name right), tomorrow what are you doing?'
'Nothing, Imma. Why?'
'We have to make kaparot.'
'We do?'
'Yes.'
'What exactly are we going to have to do?'
'Don't worry. Just be here at seven o'clock tomorrow morning.'

No one messed with Savta (Grandma). So at seven the next morning my husband walked me over ( we lived around the corner and up the street in Macheneh Yehudah at the time) and he went off to work.

And for the next eight hours we plucked chickens! Eleven of them!
Now, as my time is limited today, I have to give you the shortened version.

Question number one...when was the last time you touched a dead chicken?
Question number two...with the head still on?
Question number three...with all the insides still inside?

See, where I came from you either went to the nice butcher or the grocery store and there, all gutted and plucked, were any number of chickens who had given up their lives for the good of the cause.

In America, we were walking on the moon, for G-d's sake! In Macheneh Yehuda we were plucking chickens!

A few years have passed since that day.

As we worked, I watched my mother-in-law separating the feathers into different bags. By nightfall she turned to me and said:

'Merilly, I want you to have a remember from this day.'
'A remember?'
'Yes. You worked very hard and I have decided to make you a nice pillow from all the soft feathers we collected today.'

As I sit here writing from my little mirpesset (porch) off my bedroom, I can see my bed and that very same pillow.

I have made many things in my life. But one of the things I am most proud of is that pillow.

Savta was right. Sometimes you simply need a 'remember'.

G'mar hatima tova. A sweet new year and easy fast.

Have a great day...stay safe...and thanks for dropping in.