Flowers or Candy

[P_G]

I was out buying my dear wife Ms Bonnie a card for Valentines day
and wondering about flowers or candy.

And then the whole question of whether I should make a nod to a day that honors a
"saint" And too if I really wanted to spend the next few nights on the sofa!

I see the day as at most a secular holiday a way for Hallmark to shuck me of a few hard earned sheckles. And it brought to mind the real question.

Do you see celebrating any secular holiday as sinful and wrong.
I know we can make very good arguments about Chistmas and Easter surely Halloween.

But what about Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and perhaps Cinqo de Mayo (for Simchat Torah!) I am sure there are a host of others that I can't think of also.

Torah says not to enter into pagan holidays and festivals but what about ones that have no spirtual connotation? What's your read?

blessings

PG

 

[ShirChadash]

Actually PG, Valentines day and the activities typically associated with it, is quite pagan in origin and definitely not a-spiritual. I have no problem celebrating secular holidays such as Thanksgiving (as long a I remember to Whom I am thankful) and Independance day (as long as I remember Who really gives freedom ). But we're more careful now about celebrating a number of days that (we previously never knew but have now found) are decidedly pagan in origin.

http://www.me2u.com/LoveLore/Valentine/valentine.tmpl
http://www3.kumc.edu/diversity/other/valentin.html
http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org/tracts/tract6.html

Please note I haven't read all of these articles, just am throwing them out as examples of what is out there for info on google.

Yes, I am the Google-queen


HTH.

edited because I apparently forgot how to use English grammar. LOL

 

[WildCelt]

I have a feeling not celebrating Valentine's Day is going to be a problem with my wife. "Sorry, honey, its pagan--no flowers for you."

 

[Henaynei]

G-d has a solution!!! Read about Jewish Sweetheart's Day!!!

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"There were no holidays as joyous for the Jewish People as the fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur …" (Mishnah, Taanit)(Much of the material in this section is adapted with permission from the Book of Our Heritage by Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov.)

​

​

"Tu B'Av" - The Fifteenth of Av
​

Nowadays, on the Fifteenth of Av, we observe a partial holiday; we don't say "Tachanun," a daily plea for Divine mercy, on the day itself, nor even in the Afternoon Service of the day preceding the fifteenth, similar to a full-scale holiday. Bride and groom also do not fast if the fifteenth is the day of their marriage.

These customs commemorate many happy events which occurred at various times over the history of the Jewish People. Some of these events were associated with the Temple; in the present temporary absence of the Temple, the degree of observance is (temporarily) somewhat diminished. A partial listing follows:

The last Mishnah in Masechet Taanit says, "There were no holidays so joyous for the Jewish People as the Fifteenth of Av and Yom HaKippurim, for on those days, daughters of Yerushalayim would go out dressed in borrowed white clothing (so that they would all look the same).

The King's daughters would borrow from those of the High Priest. Daughters of the High Priest would borrow from the Assistant High Priest's daughters; daughters of the Assistant would borrow from the daughters of the Priest designated to lead the People in times of War, the Kohen Anointed for War's daughters would borrow from the daughters of the Ordinary Priest. And the daughters of the rest of the Jewish People would borrow from each other, so as not to embarrass those who didn't have."

"And the daughters of Jerusalem would go out and dance in the vineyards located on the outskirts of the city. And everyone who didn't have a wife would go there." (Notice the relative lack of concern about controlling the situation when the opposite sexes are mixed, perhaps because the recent fast (in the case of Tu B'Av) and the fast on that very day in the case of Yom Kippur, have triggered a sense of self-control, which would not ordinarily necessarily be present.)

"And what would they say?"

"Young man, lift up your eyes and choose wisely. Don't look only at physical beauty - look rather at the family - 'For charm is false, and beauty is vanity. A G-d - fearing woman is the one to be praised...' ("Mishlei"/Proverbs 31:30)"

This focus on women and on marriage in the celebration of the day is based on two enactments which were made on the Fifteenth of Av, in favor of women:

The Torah tells us in Parshat Pinchas of the complaint to Moshe of the daughters of one Tzelafchad regarding the seeming inequality in Jewish Law, in the case where a man dies without sons, that his daughters seem to be bypassed in the chain of inheritance with regard to acquiring property in the Land of Israel (Some commentators suggest, based on this complaint, that if the "Meraglim" (Male Spies) had been "Meraglot" (Female Spies) there would have been no problem, because women have a greater love for the Land of Israel than men, and would never have slandered it). Hashem "steps in," so to speak, and informs Moshe that the daughters should not be excluded in favor of the sons, but that the daughters must be required to marry within their tribe.

This limitation on the marital prospects of Jewish woman was lifted once the Jewish People actually were settled in Israel; and it was lifted on the Fifteenth of Av.

Another case where a limitation on Jewish women was lifted on the Fifteenth of Av came in the Period of the Judges, in the wake of a punishment directed against the Tribe of Benjamin. The last chapters of the Book of Judges, which deals with the period of time approximately 1395 B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) - 1060 B.C.E.), the earliest period in the settlement of the Jewish People in the Land of Israel, described in that Book as basically a period of weak central control, when "there was not yet a king in Israel" (Shoftim 19:1), and "a person would and could do whatever he wanted to do," tell the story.

An account is found there of the Tribe of Benjamin acting in accordance with the description assigned it by the father Yaakov as a "wolf which tears its prey" (Bereshit 49:7; this is certainly not a complete description of the characteristics of that Tribe, because it was in their section of the Land of Israel (along with the Tribe of Yehudah) where the Holy Temple would be built). In any case, a man and a woman traveling in the area of Benjamin were taken in as a neighborly gesture by an elderly man. The Binyaminites acted in a manner indistinguishable from the manner in which the residents of Sodom greeted the guests of Lot, (Bereshit 19:1-10) except that in this case, the victims were defenseless human beings and not angels, with super- powers. In short, the woman was abused and killed by the men of the Tribe of Benjamin.

The reaction of the other Tribes was to make Civil War against Benjamin, and to enact that none of their daughters would be allowed to marry a man from that tribe.

But the enactment which prohibited a Jewish girl from marrying a man from the Tribe of Binyamin, like the earlier enactment against the orphan daughter of a man who died without sons marrying outside her own tribe, was cancelled at a later time, on the Fifteenth of Av.

​

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[P_G]

I do like that 15th of Av!

Here is my problem when we start looking at "innocent" holidays.

In truth Thanksgiving a harvest feast that was really part of the American Indian "religion"

Labor Day - Secular Humanism

Memorial Day - To honor war dead Should we be honoring the dead?

Does G-d look at the day or the heart?

PG

 

[ShirChadash]

In truth Thanksgiving a harvest feast that was really part of the American Indian "religion"

HM. Tell me more, PG? I can't say I've studied anything on Thanksgiving, come to think of it. Would love to hear more of your thoughts on it.

 

[ShirChadash]

Editing to add -- I do think that the day... or perhaps the action I should say, anyway, is as important as the heart attitude. Were it not so, then we wouldn't have found in Ezekiel where the L-rd was provoked by the men worshipping Him in the temple with pagan worship behaviors that they adopted and included in their worship of Him. I was really wavering on "christmas" this year, revisiting and trying to discern what our stand on it should be, whether it was really such a "big deal", as long as in our hearts we honor the one true King and Messiah... (DH didn't waver at all, I love that man so!) anyway, and I found this article.

http://www.eaec.org/bibleanswers/easter.htm

It deals with Easter, but it was important to me to find, because of the points it makes in dealing with Ezekiel 8 -- plainly that our holy Creator demanded that those who worship Him would not mix pagan worship-practices in, would not worship Him as the pagans worshipped their "gods". Anyway, to me it was very convicting, very convincing that having what I might think is a more acceptable heart-attitude is not enough to make pagan practices acceptable to our G-d, in my worship of Him. I don't know if that makes much sense...

Where's my coffee???

 

[P_G]

HM. Tell me more, PG? I can't say I've studied anything on Thanksgiving, come to think of it. Would love to hear more of your thoughts on it.

Lets see if this works ok and looks ok!

The Algonkian tribes held six thanksgiving festivals
during the year. The beginning of the Algonkian year was
marked by the Maple Dance which gave thanks to the Creator
for the maple tree and its syrup. This ceremony occurred
when the weather was warm enough for the sap to run in the
maple trees, sometimes as early as February. Second was the
planting feast, where the seeds were blessed. The
strawberry festival was next, celebrating the first fruits
of the season. Summer brought the green corn festival to
give thanks for the ripening corn. In late fall, the
harvest festival gave thanks for the food they had grown.
Mid-winter was the last ceremony of the old year. When the
Indians sat down to the "first Thanksgiving" with the
Pilgrims, it was really the fifth thanksgiving of the year
for them!

I am not trying to upset regarding the honoring of war dead
and especially not our murdered brothers and sisters from WWII.

To put my personal thoughts in perspective I think we bow down to the gods of
Secular Humanism with out a thought but put in much thought about what honor we
might be giving some other false god that was popular 2500 years ago.
We are assaulted daily with Baal's new face and see it not.


Much Love
Blessings
PG

 

[Henaynei]

It was my impression that the Puritans (aka "the Pligrams") (the first gentiles to try to keep the OT festivals) - were celebrating their version of Sukkot as they understood it.

 

[P_G]

It was my impression that the Puritans (aka "the Pligrams") (the first gentiles to try to keep the OT festivals) - were celebrating their version of Sukkot as they understood it.

I suppose it really becomes a matter of perspective on that.
From the Puritan side of the picture I think you are correct from what I have read
From the Native American side I think you would find that they saw this as a religous thing. Also from what I could discover the date we celebrate it is wrong and that it was likely on October 10th that it was celebrated.

Hmm we move the birth of Y'shua from September to December Thanksgiving from October to November WHAT NEXT????

PG

 

[iitb]

/me is glad he doesn't have to deal with silly greeting card holidays