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October 29, 1999/19 Cheshvan 5760, Vol. 52, No.9
October dilemma: May Jewish children go trick-or-treating?
Jane Ulman
Special to Jewish News
For me, the October dilemma consists of finding Halloween candy to pass out to trick-or-treaters that I will not eat, no matter how desperate or distraught I become.
For my children, the challenge is creating peer- and parent-approved costumes that will also work for Purim.
But for many Jewish parents, who associate the holiday with demons, death and wickedness - as well as with Christianity - Halloween is problematic.
My husband, Larry, and I allow our children to trick or treat, albeit with a minimum of fanfare and fuss. For us, a look at Halloween's history demystified most of its objectionable aspects.
The name "Halloween" comes from a corrupted, contracted form of All Hallows Eve, which precedes All Hallows Day (or All Saints Day), created by Pope Boniface IV in the seventh century to honor saints and martyrs, and observed on Nov. 1.
The origins of the holiday itself go back to the fifth century B.C.E., to Samhain, the Celtic New Year. On this date, the curtain dividing the realms of the living and the dead was thought to be at its thinnest, allowing spirits to spend the night visiting the world of the living, perhaps seeking bodies to possess - and allowing fortune-tellers an excellent opportunity for divination.
On Samhain, the Celts, primarily the adults, wore costumes to avoid being recognized by the spirits. They extinguished their home fires and lit a large, communal bonfire, a sacred conflagration that they then used to relight their own hearth fire, symbolically protecting themselves against the approach of an ominous winter.
By 43 B.C.E., after the Romans had conquered much of the Celts' territory, Samhain had become commingled with two Roman festivals, including one honoring Pomona, the goddess of fruit and trees. That holiday is the likely harbinger of the custom of Halloween apple bobbing.
Centuries later, medieval Christian authorities transformed the pagan celebration into the church-sanctioned holiday of All Hallows Day. In 1000 C.E., the church further designated the following day, Nov. 2, as All Souls Day to honor the dead. On that day, poor people in parts of Europe went begging door-to-door for pastries, known as "soul cakes," promising in return to pray for the dead relatives of the donors. The tradition is considered the forerunner of trick- or-treating.
Later, European immigrants brought Halloween to America, where it was celebrated with various degrees of enthusiasm and various permutations of Celtic, Roman and Christian customs. It was Irish immigrants, fleeing Ireland's potato famine of 1846, who greatly popularized the holiday. By the 1920s and 1930s, Halloween had become a secular, community-centered American holiday.
The truth is that holidays evolve. And while Samhain seems barbaric and sinister to us, the autumn rite helped a primitive people make sense of a scary and inexplicable world.
Today, Halloween has as much relevance to Samhain and All Hallows Eve as Mother's Day celebrates incest, revenge and the Christian Church. (Mother's Day, according to many sources, can be traced back to an ancient Greek holiday honoring Rhea, the mother of the gods, who married her brother, the Titan Cronos, then plotted revenge to save her children. Later, the holiday honored the mothers of England and, in Europe, the Roman Church.)
Judaism is a life-enhancing religion. But our holidays also reflect a dark side. In ancient times, on the pilgrimage holidays of Sukkot, Passover and Shavuot, we sacrificed animals on the Temple altar.
And look at Purim, a personal favorite, to which Halloween is often so unfavorably compared.
The Megillah (Purim story) relates that in averting the decree to murder the Jews, 75,000 anti-Semites in the province were massacred, along with several hundred in the city. Holidays, like people, are complicated and not always unadulterated.
Unless Halloween falls on the Sabbath, I don't see where trick-or-treating, in a home where Jewish life flourishes, compromises a family's Jewish values.
Not every holiday or happening has to be moral and meaningful. Fun, on occasion, is a healthy objective.
Halloween offers an opportunity to spend time together as a family, to meet the neighbors and explore the neighborhood, to teach our kids to say "thank you."
And as my friend Jody Kussin, a child psychologist, maintains, dressing in costume allows a child to safely explore and experience a variety of personae, an important step in developing his or her own unique sense of self.
So all things considered, once a year, for harmless secular fun and a serious sugar high, Halloween can be a treat.
Jane Ulman lives in Encino, Calif., with her husband and four sons. This column was distributed by Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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