By Eileen Weintraub, , Seattle
Your column in defense of kaparot was so upsetting I am just getting the strength to write now (“What’s Your JQ?” Sept. 11).
How can inflicting pain on a helpless creature make us better people? Do you know that many people who inflict pain become desensitized?
I feel very sad that Jews need to make other beings suffer to make themselves think of their own mortality. This part of being Jewish I completely reject and no amount of “scholastic” interpretation will ever make it correct. Judaism is a religion of compassion and any other “interpretation” is twisted. God gave us dominion over and with nature to protect, care and be in mutual harmony and benefit each other, not to torture them to give dramatic “lessons” for our own mortality.