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?
I think you missed a very important distinction here...
For Hitler, it was a matter of removing the “pollution” from society, and liquidating those who “caused” the “pollution.”
In the case of Halacha, since Jews have been dispersed around the globe since biblical days, the law was designed to keep Jews from participating in the local religious festivities and losing their Jewish religious identity.
In other words, you’re equating Hitler’s espousing of exterminating those with whom he disagrees to a religious sect keeping itself separate from society, much like the Amish.
Mark
Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord.
I am the way, the truth and the life.
Jesus was :
A liar, a lunatic or is Lord. Eternity is an awful long time if you get that wrong zionist conspirator..
Good post.
And let’s not forget the dastardly trade of Tim Tebow, to NY, when Elway had a better trade to Jacksonville, who would have actually started him.
The machinations of the evil doers is wide and expansive.
Booo !
If we can celebrate the Jewish Holiday of Baseball, I have no problem with Jews celebrating Halloween or Christmas.
In any case I suspect God is OK with anything that brings us together.
Good post???
FRiend, please re-read this. And ZC’s comments. This is NOT about Halloween in as much as it is an attack on American traditions and Holidays. And Christianity.
And especially at how “Chr*st is a false “gxd”
(post 20)
(Except the same reasons many are voting for Romney -- anti-Obamaism -- anti-liberalism -- anti-socialism...could be applied toward Romney in over 40 states...minus having Obama re-elected)
Even Colorado has swing from swing state to Romney camp...polling wise...
Meaning that if only the TRUE purple state voters voted anti-Obama, Obama need not be re-elected and we don't (at least in over 40 states we wouldn't) have suddenly all these...
...pro-life voters voting for a pro-abort...
...anti-socialist voters voting for a socialist healthcare pioneer (RomneyCare)...
...Christian voters voting for a guy committing idolatry by claiming he's a rival god to THEIR ultimate God...
Hmmmm - NY certainly has felt the wrath of importing their false god, have they not? Five losses, and an exclamation point named Sandy, for those who weren’t watching....
(Yeah, we know...Mormonism, per you, is politically correct 'round here...Islam, of course, isn't...)
“It riles them to believe...
you have perceived.
The Web they have drawn for you”
The author of the posted article was talking to Jewish people. IMO, it’s also a good message for Noachide followers like myself. We believe in only One G-d, with no partners, associates, other additives or piles of metaphors about the issue. That’s the First Law for us all (of the Seven Noachide Laws).
Zionist Conspirator: isn’t it true, that we have no commandment to proselytize to or convert Chr*stians or others who believe in multiple deities, associates, whatever? At the same time, some of them shouldn’t be so pushy, publicly insulting and threatening about their Greco-Roman/European religion.
As for the USA, the first Americans (Puritans and other real Protestants) rejected Halloween and other beliefs of official European religion. There are also the First Amendment and various declarations from the first Americans against European religious edicts (see English Civil War, other conflicts).
Now, as to this: Then it's [Christianity] a false religion.
Says you.
The Incarnate Word of God says:
"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. "
and
“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!
Hmmmm ...
Seems to me, I can either listen to God Himself, or listen to Random Internet Dude.
Easy choice.
Now ... you could retort the same ... that you have a choice between "G_d" (sic) and Random Internet Dude ...
And you'd be right.
We can't both be correct, here. At least one of us is wrong theologically.
I'm convinced it's you.
There is only one Way to the Father.
Actually, those are all secular "holidays." On the other hand, if you're not misinterpreting what ZC said, then it seems that Chanukah, Purim, and Tisha B'av, which are religious holidays, but the events the holidays are based on happened long after The Lord handed down The Torah, shouldn't be celebrated.
Just a thought...
Mark
In the Old Testament Almighty G*D used a Jackass, Several Heathen Monarchs(Nebercanezer(sp/), Cyrus the Great, and Darius, don’t YOU think that Almighty G*D can used EVEN a Misguided MORMAM to do his work?
?
Now, as to this: Then it's [Christianity] a false religion.
Says you.
Was it authorized at Sinai? Yes? No?
The Incarnate Word of God says:
Just how do you know this? Because it's a claim of chrstianity and you identify with chrstianity for cultural or traditional reasons? What makes you think that chrstianity's claims are self-verifying?
Your arguments are really no different from those of a KJV-only Fundamentalist Protestant to whom the claims of (or about) the KJV are self-affirming and have no need of external evidence.
"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. "
and
“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!
And these claims are self-affirming? To make them is to prove them?
Hmmmm ...
Seems to me, I can either listen to God Himself, or listen to Random Internet Dude.
Easy choice.
Look . . . I know where you're coming from. But you must realize that this line of argumentation is beneath you. Chrstianity doesn't listen to G-d. It listens to a man who claimed to be G-d in whose name the Holy Torah was (G-d forbid!) abolished and replaced with a new one. Your utterly cavalier attitude towards the Revelation at Sinai simply makes no sense (unless you have excised it from your beliefs). There is no "new testament" in my Bible. There is most certainly an "old testament" in yours. Your ignoring it to merely parrot the claims of chrstianity as if they were self-evidently true is childish.
Now ... you could retort the same ... that you have a choice between "G_d" (sic) and Random Internet Dude ...
And you'd be right.
We can't both be correct, here. At least one of us is wrong theologically.
I'm convinced it's you.
You're "convinced?" I have no doubt that you believe it is I who am in error, but I do doubt that you are "convinced." How many chrstians have ever even considered the claims of their parent religion? Probably no more than you could enumerate on the fingers of one hand.
Chrstianity may cream paganism (which it indeed fulfills, adopting its calendar and holidays), but it's never been able to win an argument with Judaism. RaMBa"N wiped the floor with chrstians in medieval Spain.
It's one thing when two religions claiming two separate revelations claim to be true. It's quite another when one religion acknowledges the other and then adds to it. I doubt you've ever given the issue of whether this was called for very much thought.
Good gravy how one little anti-"halloween" thread has been seized on and diverted. I wonder if this is happening to Fundamentalist Protestant anti-"halloween" threads?
Indeed. No one is worshiping demons( that I know) It is all in good fun. Some people need to get a life.
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