halloween scrooge

I've written in the past about how I don't understand the appeal of Halloween because the "rituals" of the holiday seem to have no apparent purpose.

Here you have a holiday that's widely celebrated, though it's totally detached from the original reason it was celebrated. (And if it was still attached to that original meaning, no one would celebrate it.) People do all sorts of things on Halloween, but they're all meaningless.

People carve pumpkins on Halloween. What's the point?
People dress up on Halloween. Why?
People knock on people's doors and ask for candy. What kind of ridiculousness is that?

Look, if someone's celebrating Halloween because these sorts of things have meaning for them, fine. But I don't know anyone like that. People don't celebrate Halloween because they connect to the ancient Druidic rituals or because its a deep and important part of their heritage. People celebrate Halloween because... they do.

Obviously, as someone who cares a lot about Jewish holidays, I want to celebrate festivals and holy-days that have some purpose and whose rituals are connected to said purpose. Lest you think that when it comes to holidays I'm a religious extremist, I think Thanksgiving and Mother's Day are really important holidays that are worth celebrating. Mothers Day, despite being invented by Hallmark, is about appreciating someone who deserves appreciation. I can get behind that holiday.

Anyway, I'm bringing up Halloween again because (a) its coming up soon, and (b) Joel Hoffman recently wrote a sort of Jewish Halloween manifesto that came to my attention.

Hoffman argues that Halloween isn't not a Jewish holiday, by which he means that the crap some ancient Israeli Hebrew school teacher once fed him about Halloween being an anti-Semitic holiday isn't true. And even though the holiday has some pagan and Catholic roots, they've never been part of the American way of celebrating the holiday. So there's nothing about Halloween that's anti-Jewish, according to Hoffman:

...in this country Halloween was never regarded as a sectarian celebration. It wasn’t even on most American calendars until the mid-nineteenth century. When it finally did take root, it was a mixture of pranks, dress up, jack o’lanterns, and candy, none of which is un-Jewish in any way. So my grumpy Israel teacher was wrong.

Hoffman goes even further when he says that Halloween is something that Jews should get behind because it's rich with values that we agree with:

If we abandoned everything that had a disagreeable history, we’d have to give up many of our favorite Jewish rituals, too.

Whatever their non-Jewish roots, American holidays such as Thanksgiving and Halloween are now symbols of pluralism, yearly signposts advertising America’s freedom and tolerance. These holidays are an opportunity for Americans, regardless of background, to come together and share an experience. And they can even be an enormous amount of fun.

Pluralism, tolerance, community, and fun are all Jewish ideals, and I, for one, am looking forward once again to greeting bizarrely dressed children as they come to my door and ask for treats.

I have two problems with this argument.

First of all, taking on a holiday that's not part of your own religious tradition just because it has values that you might like is a silly idea. To many Americans, Christmas is a holiday that's about family, generosity, hope, and good cheer. I like all these things, and, to be honest, all those things are Jewish ideals. Does that mean Jews should celebrate Christmas? I think not. ("Ah... But Christmas is different because it's a religious Christian holiday," you say. Actually, I think its pretty comparable to Halloween, at least by Hoffman's definition. Sure... Christmas may have once been a religious holiday. And it still is for some. But should we abandon it just because it has a "disagreeable history"? To many Americans, Christmas is a secular holiday where they give presents.) I think Jews shouldn't celebrate Christmas because it's not our holiday, and because, contrary to Hoffman's argument, you can't actually separate a holiday from its history.

But to be honest, that's not why I don't celebrate Halloween. As I said above, I don't have a problem with holidays that aren't Jewish. I celebrate Thanksgiving and Mother's Day, after all. Heck... I think more people should celebrate Columbus Day and Flag Day and Veterans Day. My second problem with Hoffman's argument is that I just don't accept that Halloween is about "[p]luralism, tolerance, community, and fun." I don't celebrate Halloween -- as I said above -- because it's a dumb holiday with no real redeeming value. If it really were about "[p]luralism, tolerance, community, and fun" then I might celebrate it. But it's not. It's mostly about candy and carved pumpkins (!) and stupid rubber masks. I don't want to sit around eating candy (or sit around giving it away to kids threatening to "trick" me if I don't give it to them). I'd rather eat pumpkins then carve them. And, well... I guess I don't have a problem with rubber masks.

I have better things to do with my Friday evening, so I'll stay away from Halloween, thank you.