Jewish Values & Halloween

The month of October has been filled with holidays from Rosh Hashanah to Simchat Torah!  As we conclude this month, we end with a bang: Halloween.  Yes, I know that Halloween is not even remotely a Jewish holiday!  As you might have known, the origins of Halloween goes back over 2,000 years to the ancient Celtic holiday of Samhain.  This was a day when the boundary of the living and dead were quite blurry.  This pagan holiday celebrated the return of the dead as ghosts who visited the living.  Later, the holiday was transformed into “All Saints Day” to honor martyrs.  In recent generations, the holiday has once again changed with the times.  Today, Halloween has become a celebration of candy, costumes, pumpkins, with a little bit of horror thrown-in.  Even amongst the chocolate and costumes, there are Jewish values that can guide us in our celebration of Halloween.

Welcoming Guests

One of the quintessential Jewish values is hachnassat orchim: the welcoming of guests.  In the Torah, we learn that Abraham and Sarah welcomed strangers into their tent who were travelling across the wilderness.  They provided them with food, water, and shelter, which gave them nourishment and strength.  During Passover, we are reminded: “All who are hungry come and eat.  All who are in need, join the Passover meal.”  We open our doors to the hungry as well as all those who need communal support.

Honestly, how often do we truly open our doors to our community?  In our modern age, we often run from house to garage to car.  We don't connect with our neighbors or our broader community as much as we'd like.  Halloween is an opportunity to open our doors, to welcome our neighbors and community into our homes.  Although we provide small tokens of sugar and chocolate, these are gifts of hospitality, nonetheless. 

Tzedakah

In many ways, Halloween can be the most stereotypical of American holidays.  It’s a holiday about sweets, fattening us up, and it’s all about ME, ME, ME!  But, it doesn’t have to be that way.  Judaism teaches the moral imperative of giving back to our community.  Each Jew is required to give a percentage of money as tzedakah, money that will help uplift the community.  This money is not charity, it’s a Jewish requirement, an act of justice.  Halloween can be more than collecting the most amount of candy!

As a child, I was given an orange cardboard box to collect money for UNICEF.  From house to house, I would travel asking for some coins to help children throughout the world.  It was literally, a tzedakah box!  Today, you can do the same by registering through the UNICEF Website.  Even five dollars collected can provide children with 13 doses of the measles vaccine.  As our kids travel from house to house on Halloween, they can fill more than their tummies with candy.  They can do their part to help those in need.

Jewish Values & Halloween

Yes, I know that Halloween is not a Jewish holiday.  Yet, there are Jewish values that can become the heart of Trick-or-Treat.  Opening our doors and giving out candy is the observance of Hachanasat Orchim, the welcoming of guests.  Having some coins on the ready and a UNICEF box (or a tzedakah box) in hand will help us all observe the mitzvah of tzedakah.  May we infuse these Jewish values into our Halloween celebration!

Opening Our Home to Those in Need

 

This is the bread of poverty and persecution 

that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt

Let all who are hungry, come and eat

Let all who are in need, come and share the Passover meal

This year we are still here – Next year, in the land of Israel

This year we are still slaves – Next year, free people

-Passover Haggadah

Each spring, these words are read at our Passover table!  The rabbis long ago determined the significance of these words.  Not only is this the first major reading of the seder, but it was written in Aramaic, the language most Jews understood when the Haggadah was first compiled.  The rabbis wanted everyone who sat at the Passover table, young and old, to understand our Jewish obligation to help those who are hungry AND those who are in need.  That is why many Jews open their front doors at this point in the seder, welcoming all who don’t have a place to go for the Passover meal.

This year, our annual Mitzvah Day falls much earlier in our Temple calendar.  Normally we gather to do mitzvot and acts of loving kindness well after Passover.  However, because of our quirky Jewish calendar, we’ll join together with Temple Beth Sholom a few weeks prior to the holiday.  That makes this year’s Mitzvah Day extra special!  Our theme this year is “Share your bread with the Hungry” words written by the Prophet Isaiah.  Just as Passover approaches, we will have the opportunity to gather as a community and help feed the hungry and provide comfort to all who are in need.

In connection with the upcoming Passover holiday, many of our projects this year will revolve around the issues of hunger and poverty.  We’ll join together to make and deliver meals to those in need; our youngest kids will decorate cookies to be delivered to the Interfaith Nutrition Network (INN); our teens will be making hundreds of sandwiches for hungry New Yorkers; and our Brotherhood will oversee the packing of Passover meals for Jews in the Lower East Side.

This year, we’ll also have the opportunity not just to do mitzvot, but to learn about the challenges many face.  David Napell from Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger and Christine Going from Island Harvest will join us to share their thoughts about Food Insecurity in Long Island and approaches we can take to help hungry Long Islanders.

As we begin our preparations for the Passover holiday, I invite you to join us on Sunday, April 10^th from 9am – 1pm at Temple Sinai for Mitzvah Day!  Join us to learn, to do acts of loving kindness, and to meet your fellow congregants.  Mitzvah Day is always a highlight of the year.  May we open our home to all who are hungry and all who are in need.