I remember the excitement of wondering what kinds of costumes would show up at the door.
Giving candy out to the other kids was the closest I came to participating on a yearly basis. At school my friends and I would compare notes about the different visitors we had the night before. "He-Man came to my house!" "This one kid had the coolest Pac-Man costume!" Clearly it was a very long time ago.The kids from the frummest families would brag that they gave out healthy snacks. "Give them raisins. They won't come back next year." I suppose its good that the frummies at least gave the trick or treaters something.
My grade school Rebbeim felt the need to attack Halloween every year. "It's a pagan holiday! Avodah Zarah!!!" they would cry. Pagan was always short hand for idol worship. Of course, idol worship is covered in the Ten Commandments and is punishable by death. So on some level the message was if you dressed up and went Trick or Treating you should be killed. They were over the top about it. I guess they feared the lure of sweet, sweet candy might make us cross over. Meh. Purim always seemed like a fair trade. I was never hung up about missing out on Halloween. I think they over played their hand.
Wow. While writing this post I had a flashback.
I remember carving a pumpkin when I was very little (maybe 5?) with my father. That was pretty cool. If I remember correctly the pumpkin's hacked out features didn't come out as perfectly as I thought they should. We put a candle in it so the poorly carved face would light up in the dark. Having BT parents can be pretty cool sometimes.
Happy Halloween everybody!
11 comments:
Clearly Halloween today has lost any connection to its Pagan origin.
"So on some level the message was if you dressed up and went Trick or Treating you should be killed."
That's a subjective statement. Whatever you were being taught on an unconscious level your teachers wanted you to follow what they knew on the NonFreudian level they were teaching you. If we told you what we thought you are teaching us unconsciously you would argue it's only our opinion. Also on an unconscious level we have many contradictory things to say.
HH,
I completely agree with you. However, the Rabbis also made a big deal about the fact that it is pagan in origin and how that still constitutes some sort of evil.
It's the same as the Christmas tree.
I woulden't say its evil, but that the holiday is so incredibly alien and at odds to Judaism that it can never work.
siiiiggghhh
I do miss going to haunted houses though
LNM - "It's the same as the Christmas tree."
I would go even further and say that the whole holiday of Christmas, as well as Halloween, are not really religious holidays to the majority of people. Of course they have there roots in religion, but now people celebrate Halloween as a fun time to dress up and they celebrate Christmas as a family gathering with the real focus on materialism and presents.
On a Halloween trick or treat note, i remember when some kids knocked on our door when I was probably around 11 or 12. My father gave the kids some candy and then one asked my dad if he was jewish. when my dad answered in the affirmative, he asked if he could get extra candy for saying the aleph bet or shema :)
It's nothing but a secular Purim
I was raised with the idea that pumpkin was treif!
Historians tell us of the pagan parallels to many of the holidays in the torah that became adopted by the Jews, like succot which is a fall agricultural festival (which as described in Nehemia was not widely practiced until after the first temple's destruction), or Pesach a spring festival. I woudn't count on this happening with Halloween. The holiday is not viewed as having any religious significance, any more than July 4th or memorial day.
DRJ
We might need to differantiate between it being from a pagan origin, and merely these are the harvest times throughout the year and therefore, if a culture WAS to use these for religious worship, it would be these times.
"succot which is a fall agricultural festival (which as described in Nehemia was not widely practiced until after the first temple's destruction)"
No actually the verse isn't saying the holuday wasn't observed widely. It is saying something unique about how it was observed.
I grew up orthodox in Columbus, Ohio, and all of us little kids (except maybe the rabbi's children) went trick or treating, no one made a big deal out of it.
Judaism always was and is what Jews in any generation and place make of it, given its traditions and local circumstances. 100 years ago, who every heard of a "Bat Mitzvah"? Even in the 1970s it was still just considered women's lib crap, but now its mainstream. Letting little boys' hair grow until age 3 used to be only among the hassidim, now lots up people do it, like its a mitzvah.
All of societies' customs evolve over time, and Jews aren't exampt from it, its just that we infuse these customs with relgious significance when there really isn't any. Little boy's hair like orlah? what about a girl?
growing uo we never went trick or treating, nor did any of the neighbors come to our house to ask for candy.
this year however, my roommate and i decided to decorate the house, we put out pumpkins, put decals on the windows, we had some neighborhood kids come by for candy and we both enjoyed it very much.
we also plan to put up a christmas/chanukah tree, and decorate it and have fun.
Post a Comment