""Excuse me, excuse me, who are you taking pictures of? Excuse me, excuse me, why are you taking pictures? Excuse me, excuse me, I beg you not to take pictures of me, excuse me, yes you are the photographer, excuse me, can you move a moment, I want to move, excuse me, but don't you think taking a flash photo is a bit excessive. Excuse me, excuse me, could you tell me where the picture will be published? Insoldik, not a_bilder.".
This is how it went from the moment the chicken coops began to arrive in the direction of the slaughterhouse in Mea Shearim.
I heard the word "sorry" hundreds of times during the afternoon and evening hours - each time in a different variation. Sometimes with a smile and sometimes with anger. And even once in anger: "Sorry! I'll break your camera... We don't take pictures here...""
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Oh well, it's not so easy to take pictures when people are just coming to apologize.
So after a long hour of pictures that drifted into the night, I said sorry.
And I left the place.
Minutes after the chicken coops were brought to the site, all the neighborhood children began arriving with spoons and bowls of food to feed the starving roosters.
""Don't they like watermelon?" the boy asked after a long hour of trying to feed the roosters, who had come from a long journey on the country's roads, and served them chilled watermelon cut into tiny pieces.
This time the babysitter paid off: a small bowl, wet bread, disposable spoons, and for the next hour she would only have to spoon out a few bread crumbs for the chickens, which of course they didn't eat.
And the feeding of the roosters continues. When the little girl was unable to feed the roosters, she called for help from the Children's Corps, who tried to get her a rooster that would accept a taste of the spoon. Sorry to tell you that didn't happen.
""Meow, meow," the boy whined to the roosters. When they didn't move, he made sounds from all the zoos he knew. When it didn't help, he began to crow around them with sounds and dances. He only stopped when he realized that the roosters weren't going to cooperate.
""Sorry girls, move, move, girl Zuzi." With the neighborhood children cheering behind them, the girls only followed with their eyes and did not participate in dragging the chicken coop.
Not a single word was spoken from their mouths during almost fifteen minutes of dragging chicken coops from the truck to the slaughterhouse. But I think the sounds of joy and exultation can also be conveyed through the picture.
The Jew in the picture prayed with me at the Western Wall during the Rosh Hashanah minyan, served as a prayer leader during the verses of the Zimra and as a reader during the Torah reading. When we met here, I wished him a happy new year, and he smiled and blessed me with all the blessings.
The mothers read from the page: "He will bring them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and their sacrifices he will cut off." Verses said before the atonement, and just then, with a half-hidden glance, she looked at me and at the camera with trepidation. The rooster almost escaped after its grip loosened. But the gaze won over the picture.
""Well, you can turn around now," the father said in Yiddish, which was immediately translated for me by one of the cute guys there. A slight nod from his daughter led to a quick turn over his head: "This is your suit... this is your cap...""
""Will this be enough for the two of us or will we need another one?" A quick check of its weight and they decided it would be enough for both of them. "But you do, I'm not touching the rooster." I didn't stay to see how many rounds they ended up doing overhead.
""Where's Mom? And Hani?" he asked. "Everyone's here," a muffled voice answered from the crowd of people - and the father began waving the frightened rooster above their heads. "This is your atonement, this is your suit, you will go... and he will go...""
In the adjacent hallway, hiding from the photographers, they made amends. He was standing right outside, trying to hide, not show. I took the picture. After he finished, I went up to him to ask if it was okay for me to take the picture, when you can't see his face? His response was: "A man should hide in hiding..." and he said it was okay.
""Can you make me atonement?" she asked. "Yes," he happily replies. She whispers the text from the siddur, and every time her lips stop moving, the rooster begins to circle above her head. And so with each turn, her stature straightens, everyone looks on in wonder, and it's as if she has lifted the weight of a heavy journey from her. She finishes, tells the guy "thank you" - and goes home.
""Just take a picture of the rooster, he won't know he was being photographed for another hour." And he lifted and waved, the cameras around him clicked, and when he was finished, he turned to the group of photographers on the spot and said: "I just ask that they don't see me, the rooster can be published.".
Many people used to check a man's tzitzits to see if he was worthy of being their friend, and during the Kaffarot they check the wings of a chicken to see if it was male or female. This is how the test is conducted in front of the expert. "It's a male," he said, and immediately the words "This is my suit" were heard.
""This is mine, mine, mine, this is my rooster," the boy insisted, refusing to let go of his rooster that had circled above his head just minutes before. Minutes earlier, he had cried and screamed as the rooster circled above him, and it seemed that the crying stemmed from fear, until it became clear that he wanted his rooster with him.
The effort was difficult, but she insisted: "I want to make the atonement for myself." It wasn't easy, the effort was really hard on her. When she finished, she explained to those who would only listen that God Himself records and writes us in the books of life, so she would make the atonement herself for the transgressions she had committed herself. I am sure that I heard a voice from heaven coming out and saying: "I have forgiven.".
At an impossible angle, he also made the atonement for himself alone. His back hurt afterwards, and it seemed that it was not easy at all. When they tried to help him take the rooster to the other side, he said to the child with a smile: Come see me next year too, but I can go alone, so that it will be a good year. He said - and continued on his way with his atonement.
