On Yom Kippur, The Day of Atonement, ultra-Orthodox Jews use white chickens to perform the Kaparot ritual and get rid of all their sins.
The holiest of Jewish days, celebrated with 25 hours of fasting and intense prayer, offers ultra-Orthodox Jews the chance to make a year’s worth of sins vanish. All they need is a chicken, preferably white, and a simple blessing. The live chicken is waved above the sinner’s head as the blessing is recited and it is believed all his of the previous year are transferred into the chicken.
The new host of the sins is then quickly beheaded and its blood drained as young ultra-Orthodox boys watch. Pretty cool isn’t it?
