Fêter Halloween : est-ce un péché dans le judaïsme ?

Judaism's ruling centers on an old category with a Talmudic pedigree: chukkat ha-goy — the statutes/ways of the nations. The Torah's command 'you shall not walk in their statutes' (Leviticus 18:3) was interpreted by the rabbis to prohibit customs originating in gentile worship or immodesty, with the Shulchan Aruch's test (Yoreh De'ah 178): a custom is forbidden if it is idolatrous, immodest, or followed for vanity's sake; permitted if it is a neutral practice or has an independent respectable purpose. Early responsa (Divrei Yoav, early 19th century, addressing Christmas) and later American responsa on Halloween divide exactly along this line: the stringent view treats Halloween as a holiday of idolatrous origin (All Saints'/All Souls', with pagan Samhain layers) whose observance — even costumed candy — violates the prohibition; the lenient view, represented by several modern authorities, treats contemporary trick-or-treating as secularized American folk practice without religious intent, permissible in principle (though many still counsel against it for identity reasons, especially where the holiday's macabre elements dominate). The practical Jewish landscape: Orthodox communities largely skip it (often with Purim — the Jewish costume holiday — cited as the already-owned alternative), while secular and some Conservative families participate as cultural Americans. Each family's rabbi is the decider — the tradition's own design.