At the Jewish Lyceum No. 144 named after Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, a leading educational institution of the Jewish Community of Dnipro, great attention was given to preparation for the upcoming Yom Kippur – the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. An important part of this preparation was the performance of the kaporos ceremony, which took place in the classrooms so that every lyceum student could fulfill this important, ancient, and beautiful ritual.
The kaporos ceremony for the students was conducted with the help of Amara Leah Lazareva, a teacher at the Jewish Lyceum’s Department of Jewish Studies. In each classroom, she helped the children recite the necessary prayers and properly perform kaporos with money, which is permitted by Jewish tradition and is also important for those lyceum students who were subsequently able to participate together with their families in the traditional kaporos with a chicken, observing the ancient Jewish custom in its full form.
All the lyceum students – both the older ones and the youngest – approached the performance of kaporos with great attention and care, aware of the importance of the ceremony and its profound spiritual meaning. For the children, this became not merely an introduction to yet another Jewish tradition, but a personal and meaningful experience during the days of preparation for Yom Kippur – a time of spiritual focus and reflection on the new year that has begun.
“It is extraordinarily important for our Jewish Lyceum not only to give children knowledge about traditions and to educate them in Jewish values, but also that every lyceum student personally takes part in the fulfillment of important customs and mitzvos, especially on these important days, when we pray for a good fate for every person in the year that has begun,” noted Amara Leah Lazareva, a teacher at the Jewish Lyceum’s Department of Jewish Studies. “Our entire lyceum participated in the performance of kaporos with great spiritual elevation, and I want to wish all our lyceum students, educators, administration, and parents a good and sweet year, that each may be inscribed in the good Book of Life and prosperity and that this inscription be sealed. And may the same good inscription be made for our entire beloved, cherished, united and cohesive Jewish Community of Dnipro under the leadership of Chief Rabbi Shmuel Kaminezki.”
