Posted on 10/31/2012 10:31:16 AM PDT by Zionist Conspirator
If you allow your kids to participate in the pagan rites of a gentile culture, they are likely to grow up with pumpkin heads instead of Jewish heads.
Tonight, Jewish youth all over the world – except in Israel– will celebrate the pagan holiday of Halloween.
Halloween is also called All Hallows’ Eve, because, for the gentiles, it is a hallowed evening, the eve of All Saints’ Day, a day which honors all Christian saints.
The Encyclopedia Britannica explains that in ancient Britain and Ireland, the Festival of Halloween was also celebration of the end of the fertile period of the Celtic goddess, Eiseria. It is said that when Eiseria reaches the end of her fertile cycle, the worlds of the dead and the living intertwine. This supposedly happens on October 31. Masks are worn to show respect for the Goddess Eiseria, who, like most Celtic gods, does not wish to be seen by human eyes. This is one of the reason behind Halloween costumes and for the holiday’s omens, spirits, demons, and witches.
This date was also New Year’s Eve in both Celtic and Anglo-Saxon times, and was the occasion for one of the ancient fire festivals when huge bonfires were set on hilltops to frighten away evil spirits. The souls of the dead were supposed to revisit their homes on this day, and the festival acquired sinister significance, with ghosts, witches, hobgoblins, black cats, fairies, and demons said to be roaming about.
It was the time to placate the supernatural powers controlling the processes of nature. In addition, Halloween was thought to be the most favorable time for divination concerning marriage, luck, health, and death. It was the only day on which the help of the devil was invoked for such purposes. These pagan observances also influenced the Christian festival of All Hallows’ Eve, celebrated on the same date.
Jewish Law states:
A Jew should not follow the customs of the gentiles, nor imitate them in dress, or in their way of trimming their hair, as it says, ‘You shall not walk in the customs of the nation which I cast out before you’ (Lev. 20:23), and ‘Neither shall you walk in their statutes’ (Lev. 18:3). These verses all refer to one and the same matter of not imitating them. A Jew, on the contrary, should be distinguished from them and recognizable by the way he dresses, and in his other activities, just as he is distinguished from them in his knowledge and his beliefs, as it is said, ‘I have set you apart from the peoples’ (Lev. 20:26). (See, Rambam, Laws Regarding Idol Worship and the Ordinances of the Gentiles, 11:1).
When it comes to the question whether Jews can take part in gentile holidays, the halachic discussion differs between clearly religious holidays like Xmas, which are forbidden, and purely secular holidays like Labor Day, which are permissible. Halloween’s religious origins and pagan history place it in the category of gentile holidays that are forbidden to celebrate.
Though Halloween in America has been secularized and commercialized to the point where it is now a frivolous time of costumes, candy, and pranks, it is still celebrated in places like Scotland and Ireland as a Celtic festival of the spirits, and in other places as a holiday honoring the Christian saints. Therefore, there is good reason for telling the kids that “Trick or Treating” is a no-no for Jewish children.
The law prohibiting our participation in gentile holidays and customs comes to protect our special Jewish holiness and cultural distinction. If you allow your kids to participate in the pagan rites of a gentile culture, they are likely to grow up with pumpkin heads instead of Jewish heads.
On the other hand, if you try to safeguard our distinction as Jews and not let your children go “Trick or Treating” with all the other kids in the neighborhood, there’s a good chance that they will grow up hating both you and Judaism for turning them into freaks in the eyes of their friends. Either way, as a Jewish parent, you lose.
What’s the solution? Move to Israel. The only place you will see a pumpkin here is in the supermarket (a small yellow one that looks more like a squash). If you truly love your children and don’t want them growing up with pumpkin heads, then the only solution is to bring them to Israel where they will grow up with Jewish holidays like we’re supposed to.
For example, my 12-year-old son doesn’t know anything about Halloween. He probably has heard about Xmas, but he’s never heard any “Silent Night, Holy Night” carols or seen mangers, or Santa Claus decorations on the street. He’s never heard of Ground Hound Day, and he couldn’t tell you what color is associated with St. Patrick. If you told him that Americans eat gefilta fish on Thanksgiving, he wouldn’t know you were pulling his leg. He’s totally ignorant when it comes to Valentine’s Day, President’s Day, and I doubt that he’s heard of Columbus. I can bet he’s never seen an Easter egg, and to him, the Fourth of July doesn’t mean a thing. For him, Memorial Day honors Israel’s fallen soldiers and not department stores sales. His official school holidays fall on the Days of Awe, Sukkot, Chanukah, and Pesach, and not on the Xmas and Easter celebration of Jezeus.
In other words, my son, thank G-d, is growing up to be a Jew without any foreign Xtian pollution, and without the schizophrenia of observing the holidays of gentile countries and cultures in foreign gentile lands.
Are you still going to let your kid go Trick-or-Treating tonight?
And this is where we have one silly statement "Christian pollution" causing a reaction then a counter-reaction, creating or hardening prejudices and playing into the hands of those who wish to push that prejudice (not you dadgum, I'm just saying that the original statement caused a fault)
ok, thank you for your forthright expressed statements
I’m not even on this thread, there was no need to ping me.
Well, there's a saying among some religious Jews: "Better to live in a land of true goyim than to live in a land of Jewish goyim."
as far as I know, ZionistC is not Jewish but something called a Noahcide. Real conservative believing Jews on FR don't make such statements as "Christian pollution" etc.
As I’ve told before, the knee-jerk anti-Christian stance (and you can see it in every post) is as disgusting and vile as the hateful, false Protocols
Just thought you’d be interested in this thread. Apologies if this disturbed you
Thank you for that -- and that encapsulates the views of most if not all conservative believing Jews who may disagree severely with Christian belief but can be tactful enough not to call it "Christian pollution"
No they don't. Christian are not bound by the the babylonian talmud any more than they are Koran, and they never will be. Jesus freed us from all that nonsense. Charging the windmills won't change that. Shabbos goys don't get to tell others what to believe.
Rather than trying to read my mind and put a negative spin on it, how about simply not pinging me to threads that I’m not on.
There are times when I think that if a Muslim wanted to run a false-flag operation to create discord between Christians and Jews, he would be hard-pressed doing a better job than we see here.
I’ll yet thank God for Christianity - even thought I’m not Christian - as it seems demonstrable that the United States could not have been founded without it.
I have to say, being Gentile, I have never given it a thought. As I said, its is great that St. Paul got us a dispensation on it...
“Although most people don’t know it, Noachide Law also forbids creating new religions or holidays, so such observations as “halloween” are forbidden to non-Jews as well.”
Oh yeah? Please show us the verse that says that. From the Word of God, not from your traditions.
It would seem to me that, since those laws bind Jews and Gentiles alike, then such a prohibition on creating new holidays would also forbid the observation of Hannukah, a man-made holiday, would it not?
“It is forbidden to utter the names of false “gxds.””
So, Jews never say the names of days of the week then?
“The Torah was given at Sinai, and it is forbidden to create any new religion after that.”
Forbidden to men, but not forbidden to God. He may do as He pleases.
That may explain his Chirstophobia. I have never met a Christophobic Jew, and every Christian I know respects the Jewish faith.
“The oral law was also given to Moshe. The written law is essentially the headnotes. It’s not the complete law.”
Hogwash. Even if that were true, that oral law would have been completely lost to the Jews long, long ago, so the “oral law” that you have today could not possibly be the same. Don’t you remember, even the written law was forgetten by the unfaithful Israelites until they rediscovered the Book of the Law in the Ark of the Covenant?
So, if they didn’t bother to preserve the written law, then there is no way that they preserved some “oral law” from the time of Moses.
The objection seems to be that Hallowe'en is "idol worship" because it is connected to the original Christian practice of veneration of the saints.
If the author believes himself to be an Orthodox Jew, then he is part of a tradition that venerates the sages.
The Christian veneration of saints is nothing other than a continuation of the traditional Jewish practice of venerating the relics and tombs and memory of the prophets and the sages.
The only distinction is that Orthodox Jews and Orthodox Christians disagree on which individuals should be venerated.
If a Christian is an idolater for visiting Lourdes, a Jew is an idolater for visting the grave of the Baal Shem Tov.
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