Full Lecture Transcript (Cleaned)
Thanksgiving Compared to Halloween and Christmas — 51:24
Me personally, I use the word haram very sparingly because it's a very big word. I would be much more comfortable saying we should avoid actively participating in Halloween, especially as adults, because of this ambiguity — that this festival is not as neutral as the 4th of July.
It's not as neutral even as Thanksgiving, because Thanksgiving — yes, there's a whiff of the early Christians thanking God or whatever — but there's no ritual to worship another god. And that's why the day of Thanksgiving varies from country to country. It's not a religious festival as much as it is a secular, non-religious festival. And that's why Thanksgiving really is done by pretty much all Americans, whereas Jewish Americans do not celebrate Christmas. Jewish Americans, by and large, do not celebrate Christmas the way Christians do.
So Halloween occupies a gray area — it is not as neutral as the 4th of July or Thanksgiving, but it is also not a religious festival like Christmas or Diwali.