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 you're certain every single refrain that people are asking saints to repeat to God are in harmony with their will, eh?)
“Strangely, I do not hear that point argued by those who claim to be G-d’s chosen people. Why is that?”
Because it’s wrong.
< shrug >
Not likely.
Even so, your comment sparked a vision of Bill Murray in a haz-mat suit. It's funny ... second only to Bill Murray describing the EPA guy in "Ghostbusters".
Just as you would ask a pastor or a family member to pray for you, and it would be entirely up to that person whether or not to pray, the same goes for any saint.
Again, this is one believer asking another believer to pray for them. It has nothing to do with issuing commands or any sort of compulsion.
(And you know they did this in New Testament times how?)
In the New Testament believers ask other believers to pray for them in various instances.
A better question might be: what does the Church, through which God compiled the New Testament, do?
Now there's some good, logical advice! /sarc
I sincerely pray that you will be among those whom the prophet Zechariah spoke of in chapter 12 verse 10:
And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.
Because it will mean that you stayed alive during the Time of Jacob's Trouble and you made it to the time where Almighty God gives you one last chance to recognize Yeshua Hamashiach as your Lord and Savior.
The Apostle John spoke of this very thing when he watched Jesus the Christ being crucified:
The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken,” and, as another scripture says, “They will look on the one they have pierced.” (John 19:36-37)
And when he wrote the book of Revelation at the end of his life:
Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen. (Revelation 1:7)
“As you know, ZC, Christians do not pray “to” saints, but ask saints to pray for them.”
I’m going to predict that you will get nowhere with a Jewish person using that line of argument. Praying to them, or communicating with those beyond the grave are equally forbidden by God’s commandments. False worship might be a bit more grave than divination, but either way, it’s a BIG no-no.
Now, I know, Catholics believe that their saints aren’t dead, so it’s not divination, but you won’t get anywhere with a Jew using that argument.
Perhaps you could point me in the right direction, since I am not finding anything that speaks to my specific question. There is plenty of information about the purported origin and history of this oral law, but I find nothing explaining away the apparent contradiction between these claims and what the Bible says regarding the ancient Israelites completely forgetting the law in its entirety for several generations.
1)I'm not Jewish.
2)Zechariah is not propehsying about chrstianity as the "fulfillment of Judaism." This is merely the chrstian interpretation of Zechariah (and the entire Hebrew Bible). But that interpretation is not self-evidently true.
3)You cannot "prove" chrstianity to a non-chrstian by simply quoting the "new testament." One must be a chrstian already for that to have any merit.
“In the New Testament believers ask other believers to pray for them in various instances.”
In which verse do they ask those who have passed this mortal coil to pray for them?
That's a very good question!
Certainly Orthodox Jews (especially the Charedim) do not observe Thanksgiving Day, as G-d has given them holidays of their own.
For Noachides Thanksgiving is a more complex issue. It is problematic because it is a religious holiday, and non-Jews are forbidden to invent new religious holidays, even if those holidays are based on the Noachide Laws themselves. However, we know from the TaNa"KH that non-Jewish kings have in the past proclaimed days of fasting in repentance for their sins. I suppose a day of thanksgiving would fall in the same category, though whether this should be a regular annual day or a reaction to the preaching of a Prophet I do not know.
This is the best I can tell you right now.
Dude, that ain't cool.
they are likely to grow up with pumpkin heads instead of Jewish heads
Now there's some good, logical advice! /sarc
::Sigh:: It's based on a pun. Yiddishe kopf ("Jewish head") is a common Yiddish expression, as "pumpkinhead" is common in American English.
Do you find Protestant opposition to "halloween" similarly offensive, or just when it is evinced by Jews and Noachides?
Since chrstianity in every form is a false, idolatrous religion,
Dude, that ain't cool.
You know what? You're right. It ain't "cool."
It is true, however.
“Now there’s some good, logical advice”
It’s word play on a prejudicial Yiddish insult.
Unfortunate.
And I say this as someone who, having a Jewish father, dabbled in it, so I know how heathenistic and false it is.
I mean, we COULD have just lived-and-let-Worship, but no, you have to be a d***, so okay. Let's rumble.
“the ancient Israelites completely forgetting the law in its entirety for several generations.”
This is where you go wrong.
First off, what was the ORIGINAL Torah scrolls. Exact copies were around. This is how they confirmed it was the original.
Second, it is false that the “Israelites had completely forgotten the law.” Think it through: it was a high priest who found the original. There were still a core of faithful who observed the law. They were just outnumbered and did not have political clout.
What this did was reinvigorate the zealots (and I use that term correctly and in a good way) and the re-istitution of the Passover as a national holiday and removal of the pagan crap that had come to coexist with Judaism.
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