Kapparot is a bizarre ritual performed on the eve of Yom Kippor when chickens are sacrificed to Satan. The animal-rights groups PETA, estimate 50,000 chickens are killed in Brooklyn alone.
Ra
b
bi Dr. Israel Drazin, writ
es about the Kapparot ritual and how it orginated as a sacrifice to Satan in
his 2008 book Maimonides: The Exceptional Mind
"Many Jews currently practice the kapparot ceremony on the eve of Yom Kippur. A fowl is waved counterclockwise around the head of a man or woman and words are recited requesting that the person's sins be transferred to the fowl. "This is my exchange, my substitute, my atonement. This rooster shall go to its death, but I shall go to good, long life and peace." The rite concludes with the slaughtering of the fowl."
page 197
page 197
"Originally, the ceremony was seen as a bribe that was offered to Satan, similar to the Azzazel bribe described in Leviticus 16. A rooster was chosen because (1) it was an animal that was not allowed to be sacrificed to God, and therefore an appropriate sacrifice for a devil and (2) the masses thought that this bird resembled Satan: it had horns like Sa
tan and its feet resemble the demon's feet. The rooster was slaughtered with the sacrificial formality of laying of hands so that it would be accepted as a suitable sacrifice/bribe by
Satan."
More Jewish authors confirming its a ritual sacrifice to Satan
From 1970:
"... there can be no doubt that the Kapparot-ceremony, especially as it was performed in the earliest gaonic time with a horned animal, ram or goat, or with a rooster, was a revival of the ancient ritual of sending a goat to Azazel. And like the goat for Azazel it was a sacrifice to Satan."