When I went into our CDC preschool this morning, the little ones were particularly wound up. Their attention spans (even by limited, preschool standards) were nearly nonexistent and the singing sounded more like screaming than music.

“Rabbi, Rabbi! Guess what? It’s Halloween tonight!!” Variations on that declaration rang out from every part of the chapel. When I commented on the more frenetic than usual atmosphere at CDC Shabbat, one of the teachers heaved a heavy sigh and said, “Rabbi, it’s been like this all week.” And we shared a chuckle over the “lucky break” that at least Halloween does not fall out on a weekday this year, so that teachers all over America don’t have to face a class of under slept, sugared-up lunatics in school the next morning.

As all of you are surely aware by now, this year, Shabbat eve and Halloween fall out on the same evening.

One of my professors at the seminary used to like to say that being a Jew in the diaspora is like trying to dance at two weddings at the same time. The confluence of Halloween and Shabbat this year certainly brings that clash of Jewish and American culture into sharper relief.

Now, when I was growing up, trick-or-treating was no big deal. Although very Jewish and solidly traditional, we were not one of those families that saw Halloween as a pagan/Catholic holiday that should be off-limits to Jewish kids. But the juxtaposition of Shabbat and Halloween this year has elicited an unusual amount of commentary on the Internet around this question and some of it is quite interesting. You might want to look at this piece by a Rabbi or this piece, taking a quite different tack, from another Jewish author.

Oh, and for perhaps the ultimate Shabbat-Halloween mash up, here’s a recipe for candy-filled Halloween challah. Treat or abomination? You be the judge.