HALLOWEEN MASKS

Is it contrary to the mood of Jewish legal tradition for Jewish children to dress up in disguises and costumes on Halloween and to go “trick or treating” on that day? (From Rabbi Jack Segal, Far Rockaway, New York.)

HALLOWEEN, which is now a play-night for children, was originally one of the special saint’s days in the Christian church. Actually, it is older than Christianity and according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, it was a pre-Christian Druidic observance in England and Ireland and, in fact, the giving of nuts and apples, etc., which was made part of Halloween, was taken from the Roman festival in honor of the harvest goddess Pomona. The Christian Church, as it did with a number of heathen festivals (since it could not wean the people away from their favorite pagan folk festival), embodied it in the Christian calendar as All Saints’ Day; and the eve before, All Hallows Eve (when, in pagan times, fires were lighted) is now Halloween, with its pumpkin illumination, etc. But as far as we are concerned, it has come down as a date in the Christian religious year.

The first question we should ask is this: To what extent may Jews participate in a folk festival which has vague religious connotations? There is a perfect parallel to the question of Halloween in the Gentile observation of New Year’s Day. New Year’s Day also has (or had been given by the early Church) a Christian religious connotation. It is celebrated in the Church as the Feast of the Circumcision, being the eighth day after the birth of Jesus (Christmas). Should this Christian redefinition of an old festival render the day too specifically Christian for us to participate in it, by sending greetings and gifts to our Christian neighbors? Certainly it is, basically, forbidden to Jews to participate in Christian festivals. Would New Year’s Day and the almost perfect parallel, Halloween, be therefore forbidden to Jews, as far as participation in them is concerned? This very question is discussed by one of the greatest late medieval authorities, Israel Isserlein, in his Responsa collection Terumas ha-Deshen, 195. (In the East European edition, this resposum is out of the regular order and is printed in the back of the book.) He says there is no objection to sending gifts to Gentiles on this festival. Of course, the Jew who is scrupulous will try to send his gifts, not precisely on that very day, but the day before; but if the day before happens to be Shabbas, there is no real objection to sending it on the very day itself, because (he says) it is not really a day of worship, but a day of good luck, etc. So we may conclude as to Halloween which has long ceased to be Christian in any religious sense, that there is no real objection to Jewish children participating in it.

But now we must ask the second question: Is the costuming and the “trick or treating” contrary to the spirit of the Jewish tradition? Actually, there is a biblical basis upon which objection could well be raised. The Bible, in Deuteronomy 22:5, clearly prohibits men from putting on women’s garments and women from putting on men’s garments. The purpose of the prohibition is to guard against immorality, so that a woman disguised as a man or a man disguised as a woman should not stay long in the company of the other sex. This biblical prohibition is cited frequently in such questions as whether a man may dye his beard, since the dyeing of hair is deemed to be a woman’s procedure. It is also cited in discussions about Purim, where people costumed in various ways and wore masks.

The full discussion of this question is found in the last responsum of Judah Minz, the great Rabbi of Padua in the sixteenth century. He cites a whole string of authorities, and says that he and his famous predecessors observed this masking and costuming and merrymaking all their lives in their various communities and never raised any objection to it. Clearly there is no objection to it, or they would have objected. Then he adds an interesting comment which is very close to our “trick or treat.” The students, as part of the hilarity of Purim, would snatch food; and he says, “This custom should not be considered ‘gezel’ (i.e., robbery) but is part of the fun of the occasion.”

So we may conclude on the basis of the spirit of tradition that neither the fact that Halloween has a vague Christian association, nor the masking or costuming or the faking of food, etc., give any ground for prohibiting Jewish children from participating in the Halloween costuming, disguising, or “trick or treating.”