On Animal Cruelty
Tonight I ventured into the very Jewish sector of my neighborhood to bear witness to a ritualistic sacrifice, which takes place annually not too far from my house. I did not know this before, but apparently it is tradition in the Hassidic faith to sacrifice a chicken on behalf of your family one or two nights prior to Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement.
The ceremony goes as such based on my gentile interpretation and a loose explanation from a fellow bystander: the patriarch of the family, or head of household, takes a live chicken, holds it high above the heads of his family members, and swirls it around a few times while chanting some prayers. He then swirls it around his own head. This swirling chicken motion is symbolic for collecting all the evil that once was contained in the noggins of this family. The chicken now holds all the evil thoughts this family once had, so it is passed to a special man who then cuts the chicken's throat and bleeds the chicken out until all the evil is gone. Where it goes after that, I have no idea.
Apparently, the chickens are donated to charity, which makes up for something, I guess. But it is a little unsettling to see this displayed out in the street. Oh did I mention this foo foo rah takes place out in the street, right out in public view? It does, which is how I was able to watch it. It is the one meeting place for all the Jewish families who partake in this tradition, so naturally, there are a lot of Jewish people around, and to fulfill everybody's need for live chickens is an entire semi-tractor trailer stacked to the brimmed with crates of live chickens.
As you can imagine, the smell was quite foul. From the fowl. Feathers everywhere, along with chicken poop, and a surprising number of eggshells. And children playing and laughing in the midst of all this.
The ceremony takes place at night, and I found out about it through a friend of mine, who happens to live very close by to where they commit this act of repentance. From what he described to me, I expected to see a great deal of carnage. When he first told me about it, he did use the words, "the blood runs in the street."
In the most recent occurrences of this ceremony, it has been much more contained. Police barricades were set up around the area containing live fowl, and the slaughtering was done in a tented area, far from view.
So, though I could not see much, I could tell what was going on.
Periodically, some gentlemen would emerge from the tent carrying big black garbage bags, which I can only guess contained dead chickens or similar. No matter how one covers it up, the fact that it was still going on right here in my neighborhood was enough to facilitate a little horror in my mind as I watched what went on.
I am aware that chickens are slaughtered everyday, considering the fact that I eat chicken a few times a week at least. But to have it right in your face like that was not only unsettling and unnerving, but cruel. I can see chickens being killed humanely for human consumption (even though that rarely happens), but for chickens to be killed in multitudes for a religious ceremony seems a bit excessive.
I don't condone cruelty to animals, and I try to avoid it. I definitely don't do enough to draw attention to the evils that come with mass production of food for the American landscape and economy, but I try to remain conscious of it whenever I bite into a hamburger or a chicken sandwich. I still need to eat, after all.
After I got home in dismay from what I had seen down the block, I turned on the light in my room only to see irony had reared its ugly head. In the top corner where my wall meets the ceiling was a spider, or what looked like a spider wrapped in some sort of cocoon-type thing. I came to the conclusion that it was probably a nest of spider eggs that had been sitting there for some time.
And everyone knows, the only thing worse than having a spider in your room is having 1000 spiders in your room. They all hatch at the same time!
So, what did I do after I had just harbored all this resentment for the Jewish ceremony and its violent way of cruelty to innocent creatures? I went up and I squashed the thing and threw it away. Then I went to bed.
The ceremony goes as such based on my gentile interpretation and a loose explanation from a fellow bystander: the patriarch of the family, or head of household, takes a live chicken, holds it high above the heads of his family members, and swirls it around a few times while chanting some prayers. He then swirls it around his own head. This swirling chicken motion is symbolic for collecting all the evil that once was contained in the noggins of this family. The chicken now holds all the evil thoughts this family once had, so it is passed to a special man who then cuts the chicken's throat and bleeds the chicken out until all the evil is gone. Where it goes after that, I have no idea.
Apparently, the chickens are donated to charity, which makes up for something, I guess. But it is a little unsettling to see this displayed out in the street. Oh did I mention this foo foo rah takes place out in the street, right out in public view? It does, which is how I was able to watch it. It is the one meeting place for all the Jewish families who partake in this tradition, so naturally, there are a lot of Jewish people around, and to fulfill everybody's need for live chickens is an entire semi-tractor trailer stacked to the brimmed with crates of live chickens.
As you can imagine, the smell was quite foul. From the fowl. Feathers everywhere, along with chicken poop, and a surprising number of eggshells. And children playing and laughing in the midst of all this.
The ceremony takes place at night, and I found out about it through a friend of mine, who happens to live very close by to where they commit this act of repentance. From what he described to me, I expected to see a great deal of carnage. When he first told me about it, he did use the words, "the blood runs in the street."
In the most recent occurrences of this ceremony, it has been much more contained. Police barricades were set up around the area containing live fowl, and the slaughtering was done in a tented area, far from view.
So, though I could not see much, I could tell what was going on.
Periodically, some gentlemen would emerge from the tent carrying big black garbage bags, which I can only guess contained dead chickens or similar. No matter how one covers it up, the fact that it was still going on right here in my neighborhood was enough to facilitate a little horror in my mind as I watched what went on.
I am aware that chickens are slaughtered everyday, considering the fact that I eat chicken a few times a week at least. But to have it right in your face like that was not only unsettling and unnerving, but cruel. I can see chickens being killed humanely for human consumption (even though that rarely happens), but for chickens to be killed in multitudes for a religious ceremony seems a bit excessive.
I don't condone cruelty to animals, and I try to avoid it. I definitely don't do enough to draw attention to the evils that come with mass production of food for the American landscape and economy, but I try to remain conscious of it whenever I bite into a hamburger or a chicken sandwich. I still need to eat, after all.
After I got home in dismay from what I had seen down the block, I turned on the light in my room only to see irony had reared its ugly head. In the top corner where my wall meets the ceiling was a spider, or what looked like a spider wrapped in some sort of cocoon-type thing. I came to the conclusion that it was probably a nest of spider eggs that had been sitting there for some time.
And everyone knows, the only thing worse than having a spider in your room is having 1000 spiders in your room. They all hatch at the same time!
So, what did I do after I had just harbored all this resentment for the Jewish ceremony and its violent way of cruelty to innocent creatures? I went up and I squashed the thing and threw it away. Then I went to bed.
posted by Leland J. Fischer at 12:37 AM
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