A Kaporeh-LZ"N HACHOVER AVRAHAM ASHI BEN R. SHMUEL HY"D YAHRZEIT 15 TEVES

A pregnant mother does not drink an additional four kosos of wine at the seder ,

for the baby that is inside her.

A katan   who has not reached the age of chinuch we don’t make him do  mitzvos.

Why is it that the minhag of Kaparos is different and we do Kaparos on infants

and even on unborn children?

Almost all mitzvos and minhagim we do, are because The Torah or Chazal commanded us to do so. Some mitzvos come along with a segula,* 1  but the primary reason for doing it, is not for the segula but because the Torah commanded us to do so. The  minhag of Kaparos is different, the sole purpose to do it is for the segula. Rashi (Shabbos 81b) brings the Teshuvas Hagaonim . “ Twenty two days or fifteen days  before Rosh Hashana they planted for every child in the house a  bean in a   flower pot.  On erev Rosh Hashana they swung the new plant over the head  of the child and said zeh chalifasi etc. Afterwards the plant was thrown into the river*2. The Magen Avraham (O. Ch 605) claims this Rashi(Teshuvas Hageonim) to be the mekor for Kaporos.                                                            The Segulah If there was chas v’sholom a gezeira for someones child to die, by doing this exercise  and davening the gezeira should be transferred to a different zerah (the bean) we confuse the satan between his zerah (child) and the zerah (plant) in the flower pot. (We find the concept k’dei l’arvev hasatan in other places as well). Kaparos for infants and the unborn are done for the sole purpose, that they shouldn’t die ch.v. The Tur (O.Ch. 605) brings our minhag of using chickens for kaparos. Here again it is to confuse the satan. A man is called gever and a rooster is called gever. We daven that the gzeiras misa should be transferred from the gever (man) to the other gever (rooster) We do not use a rooster for a female because she is not called gever.  We still need  to find a reason why we use a hens  for females. ·         *1  kibbud av v’eim-arichas yomim ·         *2 Most children die from misas askera, drowning & askera are both misas chenek