Should Christians Celebrate Halloween? A Hebrew Roots Answer
Listen to the full teaching: S13E2 – Come Out From Among Them: What Torah Says About Halloween
"Therefore, 'Come out from among them and be separate, says YHVH, and do not touch what is unclean, and I shall receive you.'" (2 Corinthians 6:17, TS2009)
The Halloween Buzz
Every October my social media feed turns into a debate. Some believers say stay far away from Halloween. Some say it's harmless fun for the kids. And a growing number say it's fine as long as we bring it into the church and give it a new name: "fall festival," "hallelujah night," or "trunk-or-treat."
While I was preparing this teaching, a church actually texted me an invitation to their trunk-or-treat. I had to laugh. It made the question very real: can we take something unholy and make it holy just by renaming it and moving it inside four walls?
I want to answer that the way I try to answer everything, by letting the Scriptures speak. Most of us have already heard the origin stories, so I'm not going to build this on them. (I'll touch on the history briefly below, because a lot of what gets passed around online is shakier than people think.) The real question isn't "where did it come from?" It's "how does Yehovah (YHVH, the God of Israel) see it?"
How Does Yehovah See the Ways of the Nations?
The Hebrew phrase avodah zarah means "foreign worship" or "strange service." It's the term for any idolatrous practice, anything that serves something other than the one true God, or serves Him in a way He never asked for.
When Israel was about to enter the land, Yehovah was clear:
"Do not do as they do in the land of Mitsrayim, where you dwelt. And do not do as they do in the land of Kena'an, where I am bringing you, and do not walk in their laws." (Leviticus 18:3, TS2009)
Mitsrayim is Egypt, and Kena'an is Canaan. Notice the very next verse gives the alternative: "Do My right-rulings and guard My laws, to walk in them. I am YHVH your Elohim" (Leviticus 18:4, TS2009). God never just says "don't." He always says "walk this way instead."
Deuteronomy goes even further. He tells Israel not even to ask how the nations worshipped, so they won't be tempted to copy it:
"...and that you do not inquire about their mighty ones, saying, 'How did these nations serve their mighty ones? And let me do so too.' Do not do so to YHVH your Elohim..." (Deuteronomy 12:30–31, TS2009)
That is the heart of the whole matter. The problem isn't only worshipping other gods. It's taking the nations' practices and offering them to Yehovah. When Aaron made the golden calf, he proclaimed a festival to Yehovah for it (Exodus 32:5). Renaming didn't make it acceptable.
Deuteronomy 18 then names specific practices Israel must never touch: "one who practises divination... or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead," because "whoever does these is an abomination to YHVH" (Deuteronomy 18:10–12, TS2009). Leviticus 19:31 and 20:6 repeat the warning about mediums and spiritists.
The Prophets Saw This Coming
In the episode I walk through Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Amos and Micah, and the story is the same in every one. Israel kept mixing the ways of the nations into the worship of Yehovah, and the prophets kept calling them back. Jeremiah 7:17–20 describes whole families joining in:
"The children are gathering wood, the fathers are lighting the fire, and the women are kneading their dough, to make cakes for the sovereigness of the heavens, and to pour out drink offerings to other mighty ones, to provoke Me." (Jeremiah 7:18, TS2009)
It was a family activity, everyone pitched in, and it provoked God to anger. In the end, this mixing is a big reason Israel went into exile.
Ezekiel gives the priests a job description that still speaks to us:
"And they are to teach My people the difference between the set-apart and the profane, and make them know what is unclean and clean." (Ezekiel 44:23, TS2009)
The Hebrew word kadosh means "set apart" or "holy." Being separate isn't automatically the same thing as being holy, but separation from forbidden worship is one expression of the holiness Yehovah asks of His people. The two go hand in hand.
"But That Was Just for Israel"
Some will say these commands were for ancient Israel, not for Christians today. But the Torah says again and again that there is one law for the native-born and for the stranger who lives among them (see Leviticus 18:26 and Numbers 15:15–16). With the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, it's never "rules for thee and not for me." When we are grafted in through Yeshua (Jesus), we're invited into the same set-apart walk.
Paul: "Come Out From Among Them"
The apostle Paul sums it up in 2 Corinthians 6:
"Do not become unevenly yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness and lawlessness? And what fellowship has light with darkness?" (2 Corinthians 6:14, TS2009)
He goes on to ask what agreement Messiah has with Belial, a name connected with worthlessness, wickedness and lawlessness. The Greek word for lawlessness is anomia, literally "without law," or as I like to put it, "without Torah." So Paul's question becomes: what fellowship does Yeshua have with things that stand outside of Torah? None. Revelation describes His people as those who keep the commands of Elohim and hold to the faith in Yeshua (Revelation 12:17; 14:12). You can't separate Yeshua from Torah.
Is God in the Trunk-or-Treat?
Here's a question that usually goes unasked: is God anywhere in this? When we hold our fall festival or trunk-or-treat in the church parking lot, is He really in it just because we moved it inside the four walls?
I don't find any Scripture that says the building sanctifies an activity. I don't see anyone in the Bible, not even Yeshua, taking something profane and declaring it holy. Think of Cain. He knew the standard and brought a lesser offering, and God did not regard it (Genesis 4:3–5).
As I put it in the teaching, all things are lawful, but not all things are expedient. Paul wrote it this way: "All is permitted me, but not all do profit" (1 Corinthians 6:12; 10:23, TS2009). Even if you can't find a verse with the word "Halloween" in it, that doesn't make it expedient or helpful for us as believers.
What the Day Means to Those Who Celebrate It
It's worth asking what this day means to the people who claim it as their own. Modern Wiccans describe Samhain (October 31) as a night when "the barriers between the worlds of life and death are uncertain," a time to welcome the ancestors and develop "divination and psychic skills" (Covenant of the Goddess). The Church of Satan and The Satanic Temple both list Halloween among their holidays. That alone should give us pause. When people of the light embrace a day the people of darkness call theirs, what fellowship has light with darkness?
A Quick, Honest Word on the History
You'll see a lot of dramatic claims online. Here's what historians actually say. The name "Halloween" comes from All Hallows' Eve, the night before the church's feast of All Saints on November 1 (Hutton; Rogers). Almost everything we know about the old Irish festival of Samhain was written down by Christian monks centuries after Ireland converted (Bitel), and scholars still debate how much of modern Halloween goes back to it. Some popular "facts," like a Celtic god called "Samhain, lord of the dead," trace back to 18th-century writers, not ancient sources (Morton).
That's exactly why I didn't build this teaching on origins. Whatever its family tree, Halloween today is soaked in the things the Torah names plainly: contact with the dead, divination, and borrowing the nations' customs to "serve" God.
Can You Say Yes to God on This?
About nine years ago, at a church meeting, the conversation turned to plans for Halloween. When I said my house wasn't taking part, someone asked, "Well, why don't you do a teaching on that day?" So I did. A couple of people came. Everyone else went for the candy and the games.
I'm not writing this to condemn anyone. I'm asking you to sit with the question honestly: is this pleasing in Yehovah's eyes? If the answer is no, or if you can't say yes right away, then you may need to let it go. A day like this could be a day for God's people to come together in prayer, not festivities.
🎧 Hear the whole teaching, including the walk through all six prophets: Listen to "Come Out From Among Them" now. If it blesses you, share it with a friend who is wrestling with this.
Shalom, and Yehovah bless you.
Scripture quotations from The Scriptures (TS2009), copyright Institute for Scripture Research. Used by permission.
Sources
Primary teaching - Mikha'el Ben-Ya'akov. "Come Out From Among Them: What Torah Says About Halloween," Torah Awakenings podcast, S13E2 (Oct 2026). Show notes: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2196768.rss. Episode page: /come-out-from-among-them-what-torah-says-about-halloween/. Transcript (internal, automatic): /workspace/episodes/come-out/transcript.txt, esp. 01:10–03:16, 05:03–12:07, 29:16–41:16.
Scripture (TS2009, verified on YouVersion, version 316) - Leviticus 18:3, 18:4: https://www.bible.com/bible/316/LEV.18.TS2009 - Deuteronomy 12:30–31: https://www.bible.com/bible/316/DEU.12.TS2009 - Deuteronomy 18:10–12: https://www.bible.com/bible/316/DEU.18.TS2009 - Ezekiel 44:23: https://www.bible.com/bible/316/EZK.44.TS2009 - 2 Corinthians 6:14, 6:17: https://www.bible.com/bible/316/2CO.6.TS2009 - Jeremiah 7:18: https://www.bible.com/bible/316/JER.7.TS2009 - 1 Corinthians 6:12: https://www.bible.com/bible/316/1CO.6.TS2009; 10:23: https://www.bible.com/bible/316/1CO.10.TS2009
History - Hutton, Ronald. "Halloween? It's more than trick or treat." The Guardian, Oct 28, 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/28/halloween-more-than-trick-or-treat-origins - Rogers, Nicholas. Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night. Oxford University Press, 2002 (discussion of All Saints on Nov 1 in England and Germany vs. April 20 in Ireland; page not independently confirmed). Archive.org records: https://archive.org/details/halloweenfrompag0000roge - Bitel, Lisa. "The ancient Irish get far too much credit for Halloween." The Conversation, Oct 29, 2024. https://theconversation.com/the-ancient-irish-get-far-too-much-credit-for-halloween-239801 - Morton, Lisa. The Whole Haunted World #1. Substack, Oct 20, 2024. https://lisamorton.substack.com/p/the-whole-haunted-world-1 (Vallancey 1786 and "Samhain, Lord of the Dead"). - Covenant of the Goddess. "Holidays," Samhain entry. https://cog.org/about-witchcraft/holidays - Church of Satan. "Information for Prison Chaplains" (PDF), holidays section. https://churchofsatan.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/PrisonChaplain.pdf - The Satanic Temple. "Holidays," Oct 31 entry. https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/holidays - Research brief: /workspace/research/halloween-origins-brief.md (Digger, Sept 29, 2026); Torah-law notes: /workspace/torah-law/come-out-from-among-them/come-out-torah-law-notes.md (Rav, Oct 13, 2026).