Australia has taken COVID-19 very seriously. Borders were closed in March and the coronavirus death count in the country of 25MM people is just 870, thanks to their mitigation efforts.
Melbourne has borne the brunt of those efforts with lockdowns and heavy restrictions on gatherings.
On the day before Yom Kippur, the most holy and solemn day in the Jewish calendar, many Jews have the custom to perform Kaparos. That consists of gently passing a chicken over your head three times as we ask G-d to substitute any punishment intended for us to go to the chicken in our place. The chicken is then ritually slaughtered and donated to charity.
With the ritual nearly impossible to perform due to COVID-19 restrictions in Melbourne, one local philanthropist and pilot, Moishe Gordon, decided to take things into his own hands.
He took several chickens up for an hour long, low altitude ride over Melbourne’s Jewish community. The symbolic Kaparos ceremony was meant to uplift the community’s spirit.
Here’s the FlightRadar24 and FlightAware tracking of his flight:
And here’s the reaction from locals on the ground:
Well, that’s one creative way to do it and it looks like the mission to bring a smile to people’s faces was certainly successful.
May we all be inscribed and sealed for a year of happiness, health, and peace, filled with unmasked blessings.
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40 Comments On "In Locked Down Melbourne, A Fowl Flight Takes Off For Kaparos Before Yom Kippur"
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Amen! Gmar chasimah tovah to all.
Amen!
very nice and very cute but would the shulchan aruch harav say that your yotzi kaparos with this or is this dans psak? unless you have smicha somewhere that we dont know about did you get it like your fly by night degree?
1. I do have smicha from Rav Dovid Schochet, thanks for asking!
2. Read the post. “The symbolic Kaparos ceremony was meant to uplift the communityās spirit.”
okay your right i give you a blessing you should live in health and happiness till 120 for suspecting you were giving an opinion . however you are way to arrogant especially this year since you started filtering comments your ego has exploded I only got this comment thru because you probably assumed no one would dare attack you on a yom kippur post. i hope this year you can work on being more humble. thank you for your amazing website though
To quote Eddard Stark… Everything before the ‘but’ is Horses***
Gmar Chasima Tova!
Sending you lots of hugs!!
I do filter out limited troll comments that don’t add anything of value to the discussion. I don’t see that as arrogance, but as improving the discourse.
I went against my better judgement by approving your comment here in order to emphasize what I already wrote in the post.
May I humbly suggest brushing up on being Dan l’kaf zchus.
G’mar chasima tova!
Dan, I highly doubt anyone would judge you for filtering out this lunatic. The guyās clearly mental.
I think Dan was trying to clarify that by specifically posting it. Had he not posted it we wouldn’t know it to this extent..
“Dan l’kaf zchus.” DD needs a pun tag.
#DanLekavZchus
What are you taking about?? What bash someone right before Yom Kippur??!! Itās straight up Motzi Shem ra!
Shua, save the hardship of fasting this YK. Spend the day eating, and thinking about what the day really means for many committed Torah observant Jews. We’ve already had a Golden Calf in our past
My bracha to you, shua, is that this year you get the help you clearly need.
Shua.
Relax.
Why are you so negative and hurtful? No one said this is the right way to do Kaparos but for the lack of any other solutions they did this, yet you see it as a problem?
Gmar Chasima Tovah!
Imagine the shochet messes up on the shechting
Moereinu Dan shlita, do you have the tail number of the aircraft used so I can pull it up and watch the flight history? (I can even provide you with a movie of the plane flying the track if you like)
It’s in the post, click on the words FlightRadar24.
Ah thank you sir. I was opening the photos thinking they were the click-through.
Gmar chasima tova
I think it is a nice post expressing a nice thing going on in locked down melbourne
On another note, when was the last time a chicken got to fly in a private jet?
I did bring a schnitzel in a pita on my last PJ flight from Toulouse to Miami, but I guess that doesn’t count š
I believe this is done every year in Israel
Found them on LiveATC!
Link? Anything interesting?
Working my way through it now, they were airborne for about 1 hour. There is a lot of other traffic but so far Center has been advising other aircraft of VM-VME orbiting the area at low altitude.
Nothing about flying chickens. Still interesting to listen to Melbourne notifying other aircraft of their presence
After being the kaparos for a whole city, those chickens just set the Guiness record for most aveira-saturated chickens ever. I don’t envy them.
I donāt think that the wonderful people of Melbourne have much aveiros.
Iām in melbourne, in fact one of those videos are from what I filmed.
I donāt think anyone here thinks they could be yoitze with the fowl flyover.
But it was definitely a nice start to the day.
Our esteemed state premier has decreed even harsher penalties and fines today;
so bringing a smile to ppl… it was a wonderful sight indeed !
Kol Hakavod for lifting our spirits all the way to
Yerushalayim. Thank you for the chuckle. Most welcome, rest assured!
Wishing you & Klal Yisrael a Gāmar Chatima Tova
vākol tuv!
it’s a good thing he’s a pilot, otherwise it would have been an awkward call with the charter company…listen, do you have a plane that can hold some chicken coops? where you do want to transport the chickens? well…
I have flown on planes loaded with chicks and other ones with chickens. They normally just put them in cardboard boxes.
indeed. Most of the time, though, those planes are going somewhere.
Lol
I heard elon is sending a chicken up in orbit
Oh wait that was a falcon
how much did this all cost?