Harry Potter and Torah

New book: Morality for Muggles

2011-11-23T03:02:00.000-05:00

Another book came out connecting Harry Potter to Jewish themes! It's called Morality for Muggles and you can find out more about it (or buy it on-line) by clicking here.

The Talmud and the space shuttle's view from space

2011-11-22T15:55:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! This is not directly related to Harry Potter, but I found it fascinating and thought I'd share it here.

The Talmud (Chagiga 12a) makes a cryptic statement about the creation of the universe: The Hebrew word "tohu" in the second verse of Genesis, usually translated "formless" or "void," is explained by the Talmud as refering to "the green line that surrounds the entire world." Since the year 300 or so when the Talmud was written, most commentaries give metaphorical or mystical explanations, and most people studying it shrug and move on.

Enter the space shuttle. Take a look at the attached video, which is time-lapse image of the world from the space shuttle. What you'll is, yes, a green line that seems to surround the entire world, apparently at the outer edge of the atmosphere.

Wow!

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

A personal thought about the reported Gilad Shalit deal

2011-10-12T02:19:00.002-05:00

The Gilad Shalit deal will force Israeli society to do something that we're really bad at: admit that things can have good and bad sides. It's undeniable that releasing terrorists will most likely result in some of them killing other Israeli civilians. This has happened before with prisoner releases and is likely this time. It's undeniably likely. On the other hand, it's undeniable that Israel has a social contract, where families (almost all) send their sons to the army, and the government has to treat each soldier like he's their son. This too is undeniable. Our challenge ahead: celebrating his release and admitting in any debate that there are sometimes big decisions to be made with undeniable trade-offs.

Harry Potter, Shofar and Jewish Unity

2011-09-27T03:30:00.000-05:00

Below is an repost of an excerpt from Harry Potter and Torah on the subject of blowing the shofar and Jewish unity. Other Rosh HaShana thoughts related to Harry Potter are here, here, and here.

Shana tova everyone!

Harry Potter, blowing the shofar, and Jewish unity

At the end of the Goblet of Fire, Professor delivers some well-chosen words about the need for unity among students and all "wizardfolk" who oppose the evil wizard Voldemort:

"Every guest in this hall ... will be welcomed back here, at any time, should they wish to come. I say to you all, once again -- in light of Voldemort's return, we are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.

"Voldemort's gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great. We can
only fight it by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust.
Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical
and our hearts are open." (Goblets of Fire, chapter 37)

The next year, the sorting hat, the magical talking hat whose job it is to divide the students into the four schoolhouses, infuses the same theme into its start-of-year song:

"...And now the sorting hat is here
And you all know the score:
I sort you into houses
Because that's what I'm for.
But this year I'll go further,
Listen closely to my song:
Though condemned I am to split you
Still I worry that it's wrong....
Oh, know the peril, read the signs,
The warning history shows.
For our Hogwarts is in danger
From external deadly foes.
And we must unite inside her
Or we'll crumble from within.
I have told you, I have warned you...
Let the Sorting now begin."
(Order of the Phoenix, chapter 11)

The same lesson of the importance of unity is pervasive throughout the Torah and Jewish prayer. Jewish unity is both a Torah-ordained objective and a source of Divine strength.

Before blowing the shofar on Rosh HaShana we read Tehilim (Psalms) chapter 47. Obviously one reason is that it mentions shofar blasts. But at the end of the paragraph we read the following:

"Representatives of nations gathered, the nation of the G-d of Abraham, for the protectors of the land are G-d's, He is greatly exalted."

Rav Salomon explained this as referring to the Jewish people whenever we gather together. We're all different, "representatives of nations," all with different customs and practices, but when we gather together for the sake of being Jews, as "the nation of the G-d of Abraham," then we have the collective ability to be "protectors of the land," and the power and beauty of this unity leads to G-d's being "greatly exalted."

In 1914, the Chassidic Rebbe of Belz made the following succinct statement concerning the difficult times felt by Jews of that era: "It is of the utmost importance that the Jews love one another. One must love even the lowliest Jew as himself. One must engender unity and keep far away from anything that causes disunity. The salvation of Israel during times of trouble rests on this".

Note that unity does not require agreeing with everyone. The Rebbe of Belz was not suggesting
condoning the actions of "even the lowliest Jew." Rather, unity means disagreeing respectfully and treating others with love regardless of agreement or disagreement, and caring about the needs of others as we care about our own.

Satmar Chassidic teachings explain that suspecting another Jew of wrongdoing is sometimes necessary, but nonetheless is something that we should literally cry for ever having to do. This teaching is based on the events described in the Yom Kippur musaf service, where the sages cried at suspecting the High Priest of wrongdoing in the Yom Kippur Temple service, based on the Talmud (Yoma 18b, Mishna 1:5).

Our goal as Jews should be to have so much unity that we become "representatives of nations, the nation of the G-d of Abraham," with all of our differences and yet complete unity of purpose.

We need, as Dumbeldore said:

"… an equally strong bond of friendship and trust. Differences of habit and
language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open."

Shana Tova!

Approach the High Holidays the Harry Potter way

2011-09-14T02:26:00.000-05:00

Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur are now under a month away, and we've started the Jewish month of Elul in which we prepare for the holidays. In that spirit, here are links to some essays I wrote previously on Harry Potter themes related to the High Holidays:

Harry Potter and the Power of Repentance:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/08/harry-potter-and-power-of-teshuva.html

Percy's repentance:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/09/percys-teshuva-repentance-and-yom.html

Even Malfoy's or Wormtail's repentance counts:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/09/rosh-hashana-even-malfoys-or-wormtails.html

Harry Potter's advice of feeling remorse:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/09/yom-kippur-take-harry-potters-advice.html

More notes about repentance:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/09/final-thoughts-about-harry-potter-and.html

I hope that everyone has had a great summer, and hope to have more Harry Potter and Torah thoughts for you soon!

Clarification of Harry Potter cookbook - and a recommendation

2010-12-27T05:29:00.004-05:00

Regarding my previous note about the "Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook" - I had written that the recipies were all Kosher. This is wrong. The author herself keeps Kosher, and most of the recipes there are indeed Kosher, but she writes in her acknowledgments that she had the help of a non-Jewish (and non-Kosher-keeping) chef in preparing a few recipes that are not Kosher.

It still looks to me like this cookbook will be a lot of fun for families with Harry Potter fans, but Kosher-keeping readers should know that (as with all non-Kosher cookbooks) there will be recipes to skip or adapt.

While I'm writing, I'd like to continue to recommend Time Out - Sports Stories as a Game Plan for Spiritual Success by my friend, neighbor, and name-sharer Rabbi Dov Lipman. Sports fans or their parents will find the book a fun way to relate to Judaism and spirituality.

Harry Potter cookbook - Kosher!

2010-12-20T09:52:00.004-05:00

I just came across a new book, The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, and not only does it claim to give recipes for all the wizard food mentioned in the Harry Potter series, but apparently everything in it is Kosher as well!

UPDATE: See my follow-up (click here) about the book's being Kosher.

Enjoy!

REPOST: The Divine Hallows (in preparation for the Deathly Hallows movie)

2010-11-02T06:21:00.002-05:00

Here's a repost of an article I wrote shortly after the Deathly Hallows book came out. I'm reposting it now in preparation for the Deathly Hallows movie opening soon.

Anyone interested in buying Harry Potter and Torah can click here to buy it at Amazon, or can e-mail me here if you live in Israel.

The Divine Hallows

The final Harry Potter book introduces three magical objects called the Deathly Hallows. Would you believe that two of the three have very close analogues in the Torah and Midrash? Read on!

(If you want to read other Torah perspectives on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, click here or here. Or click here for more about the book Harry Potter and Torah.)

The Deathly Hallows are introduced in a fairy tale that Hermione reads in chapter 21, which tells a fable of three men who were awarded magical prizes from Death:

There were once three brothers who were travelling along a lonely, winding road at twilight... when they found their path blocked by a hooded figure... And Death spoke to them... and said that each had earned a prize for having been clever enough to evade him....

The oldest brother, who was a combatative man, asked for a wand more powerful than any in existence: a wand that must always win duels for is owner... So Death crossed to an elder tree on the banks of the river, fashioned a wand from a branch that hung there, and gave it to the oldest brother.

Then the second brother, who was an arrogant man, decided that he wanted to humiliate Death still further, and asked for the power to recall others from death. So Death picked up a stone from the riverbank and gave it to the second brother, and told him that the stone would have the power to bring back the dead...

The youngest brother was the humblest and also the wisest of the brothers... so he asked for something that would enable him to go forth... without being followed by Death. So Death, most unwillingly, handed over his own Cloak of invisibility."

These three magical gifts, the Elder Wand, the invisibility cloak, and the ressurection stone, are
the three Deathly Hallows that help Harry Potter beat Voldemort at the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

If we look at the Torah, the Midrash, and the Talmud, we'll see very close analogues to two of these three magical objects: the wand and the cloak. The analogous things found in the Torah, which I think of as the Divine Hallows, aren't exactly the same as Harry Potter's Deathly Hallows, but they're intriguingly close. (I haven't found a good analogue for the stone yet, but feel free to add comments with your suggestions!)

In the story of Joseph and his brothers, when the brothers attack Joseph and sell him into slavery, the Torah tells us as follows:

"And when Joseph arrived to his brothers, they removed Joseph's coat, the coat of many colors, which he was wearing" (Ber 37:23).

The Zohar elaborates as follows: "Had the coat remained on Joseph, they could not have overpowered him. So first they stripped it from him...." (#1)

The idea that Joseph's coat being a magical coat that protected him has its roots in several other stories in the Torah and Midrash. The story begins back in the dawn of time, with Adam in the
Garden of Eden. Combining various accounts in the Midrash we get the following history of Joseph's magical coat: (#7)

"And G-d made for Adam and his wife clothes of skin, and clothed them." (Ber 3:21)

"They were embroidered with images of all the animals (to protect them from the animals). Adam bequeathed them to Cain. (#2) They were taken into Noah's ark, and when they left the ark, Ham, Noah's son, took them, and then passed them on to Nimrod... Therefore Nimrod is described as "a mighty hunter" (Gen 10:9) (#3). Later, when Esau saw this coat, he coveted it, and killed Nimrod to take it. This made him also a mighty hunter (Gen 25:27). (#4) Later, Rebekah took "Esau's special clothes" for Jacob to wear (Gen 27:15), which refered to this same magical coat. (#5) When the Torah says that Jacob then gave a "coat of many colors" to Joseph (Gen 37:3) it is referring to this same coat, passed down from Adam, to Nimrod, to Esau, to Jacob, and finally to Joseph. (#6) It was stripped from Joseph by his brothers (#1) and then given back to Jacob(Gen 37:32). (#7)

So we see the Midrash revealing a thread through a half dozen Biblical stories, of a Divinely-given coat the gave strength to whoever wore it. Sound familiar? It wasn't a coat of invisibility, but it was a magical cost that made the wearer a mighty warrior. This coat is what I might call the first "Divine Hallow."

The second Divine Hallow in the Torah, as some readers may have guessed, is Moses's staff. As I discuss in details in Harry Potter and Torah's chapter on magic wands, Moses's staff was linked to magical power throughout the Torah, including the signs shown to Pharoah, the plagues, splitting the sea, and winning battles in the desert. (See the book for more details.)

But the Talmud and Midrash tell us that Moses's staff had a longer and more illustrious history.
The Mishna in Ethics of the Fathers (5:6) tells us that Moses's staff was created on the sixth day of creation, at twilight right before the first Sabbath, when G-d created all the things in creation
that were in some sense exceptions to the rules of nature.

The Midrash (#8) tells the following history of Moses's staff: The staff which was created at
twilight was given to Adam in the Garden of Eden. Adam gave it to Enoch, and Enoch to Noah, and Noah to Abraham. Abraham gave it to Isaac, who gave it to Jacob (Gen 32:11), who took it down to Egypt and gave it to Joseph. When Joseph died, it was taken to Pharoah's palace. Jethro (Yitro) was a palace magician, and he made off with the staff, until Moses saw it and read the letters on it and took it. Jethro realized that Moses was destined for greatness and gave him the staff, and permitted him to marry Tziporah his daughter.

Another Midrash (#9) continues: With this staff Moses split the sea, split the rock to produce
water, and defeated the Amalekites. This rod was then deposited in the tent of meeting, and later in the Temple, until the days of Jeremiah. Then it was hidden along with the Ark... until G-d will deliver the Jews from exile through the Messiah who will use the staff as Moses did.

So we see a second "Divine Hallow," created by G-d to give power to leaders carrying out His
direction in the world.

As I write in the introduction to Harry Potter and Torah, there are a wide variety of opinions of
how to understand stories told in the Midrash. Many take them literally. Many prefer to take them as lessons, which they were undoubtedly intended to teach us. Regardless of whether we take the Midrashim about Moses's staff and Joseph's coat literally, they tell us the source of power and protection in the world: The Al-mighty.

At the same time, however, Harry Potter fans will note the striking similarity between Harry
Potter's Deathly Hallows and the Torah's "Divine Hallows." As we enjoy reading and re-reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we can also enjoy our own Divine folklore from the Torah.

Comments? Disagreement? Other suggestions for Divine Hallows, particularly the stone? Comments are welcome, just clink the "comments" link below, or e-mail author@harrypottertorah.com

Notes:

(#1) Zohar 1, 185a, as cited in Torah Shleima on Ber 37:23
(#2) Midrash quoted by Rav Yosef Karo, cited in Torah Shleima on Ber 3:21
(#3) Midrash PRE, cited in Torah Shleima on Gen 10:9
(#4) Midrash Yalkut Shimoni 115, cited in Torah Shleima on Gen 25:27; also Midrash Beresheet Rabba 63, cited in Torah Shleima on Ber 25:32.
(#5) Midrash Beresheet Raba 65, cited in Torah Shleima on Gen 27:15
(#6) Midrash HaBiur, cited in Torah Shleima on Gen 37:3
(#7) The entire story is summarized by Rashi, commenting on Talmud Psachim 54b.
(#8) Midrash PRE 40, cited in Torah Shleima on Ex 2:21
(#9) Yalkut Shimoni 1, 171, also Lekach Tov, both on Ex 4:17

The upcoming Deathly Hallows movie and the Torah's view of dealing with dilemmas (Chayei Sarah)

2010-10-27T07:26:00.003-05:00

With the upcoming release (November 19) of the movie of the first half of Deathly Hallows, I'm planning to step up activity on this blog. (Of course, the best way to prepare for the movie is to buy a copy of Harry Potter and Torah if you haven't already: click here!)

I think that this movie will include the scene where Harry, Ron, and Hermione visit Xenophilius Lovegood, their friend Luna's father. At the door they're greeted rather strangely:

'Would it be OK if we came in?' asked Harry. 'There's something we'd like to ask you.'
'I ... I"m not sure that's advisable,' wispered Xenophilius. He swallowed and cast a quick look around the garden. 'Rather a shock ... my word ... I ... I'm afraid I don't really think I ought to -'
...
His good eye moved again to Harry's scar. He seemed simultaneously terrified and mesmerised... He kept swallowing, his eyes darting between the three of them. Harry had the impression that he was undergoing some painful internal struggle.

We find out later that Xenophilius was in fact in a huge dilemma.

Throughout the story (and movie) we see many other people in dilemmas. The Malfoys are torn between their alliegence to Voldemort and their desire to save Draco. Harry is torn between searching for horcruxes and seeking hallows. Harry is also torn between believing in Dumbeldore and distrusting him.

We see a fascinating teaching in this week's Torah portion about how we deal with dilemmas. The Torah gives us four prototypes of dealing with dilemmas, some successfully and some not. Read all about it in an essay I wrote two years ago:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2008/11/shalshelet-dealing-with-temptation-and.html

Enjoy Harry Potter and Torah, and enjoy the new movie when it comes out!

Harry Potter themes in this week's Torah portion (Vayera)

2010-10-20T06:55:00.003-05:00

Here are links to one chapter from Harry Potter and Torah and another article in the same style, both of which relate to this week's Torah portion, Vayera (or "Vayeira"):

Mudbloods, Moabites, and Moshiach:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2008/11/vayeira-mudbloods-moabites-and-moshiach.html

Shalshelet: Dealing with temptation and uncertainty:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2008/11/shalshelet-dealing-with-temptation-and.html

I'll be posting more soon in preparation for the upcoming Harry Potter movie release.

The fight against evil (a NY Times letter to the Editor)

2010-06-02T22:59:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone. I want to pass on the letter below that I had published in the New York Times.

I think that the battle in Israel between Israel and the Palestinians is a lot like the battle between Dumbeldore/Harry and Voldemort in book 5. Noone wants to see the Palestinians, and the growing Arab activists world-wide, as evil. Just like the Minister of Magic at the end of book 4 and throughout book 5, it's simply too painful to believe that there are people who cannot be convinced of good, or motivated to do good, in the same ways as civilized society. But as Harry Potter fans know, evil can indeed exist even if it's painful to admit, and defeating evil requires first recognizing it. Let's all hope that the world soon comes to its senses and starts to recognize and address the growing evil in our midst.

Letters

The Israeli Commandos and the Flotilla

Published: June 1, 2010

To the Editor:

If the flotilla activists truly wanted to bring peaceful supplies to Gaza, they would have accepted the Israeli military’s offer to relay all supplies to Gaza after checking them for weapons or explosives. But the flotilla activists did not accept the offer.

If the flotilla activists truly wanted to promote peace, they would have accepted the offer of the parents of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held captive, to pressure the Israeli government to let the flotilla through, in return for the flotilla activists pressuring Hamas to allow letters and food packages to be delivered to Gilad Shalit. But the flotilla activists did not accept this offer either.

And if the flotilla activists really wanted to stop the three-year-old Israeli blockade of Gaza, they would push Hamas to stop the rockets that caused the blockade to be imposed. Then Gazans could return to the freedom that they had immediately after the Israeli withdrawal in 2005, when many hoped peace was on the horizon.

When activists can truly work for peace, maybe peace will come.

Bruce Dov Krulwich
Beit Shemesh, Israel, June 1, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/02/opinion/l02mideast.html

The magical powers of Shavuot

2010-05-18T00:27:00.002-05:00

I want to wish everyone a happy and meaningful Shavuot holiday!

Harry Potter fans know all about the mirror of ERISED, which shows people what they truly desire. I think that Shavuot teaches us about the Torah of LAITNETOP, which can show each of us how great our potential really is. Read more here:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/02/torah-of-l-i-t-n-e-t-o-p.html

Shavuot also teaches us about what G-d considers important, first and foremost of which is how we interact with other people. Our interactions with others have a truly magical power all their own. Read more here:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/05/magic-of-how-we-interact-with-other.html

If you're reading this and don't know what the Shavuot holiday is (it's not as widely celebrated as Passover or Yom Kippur) you can read some great articles on it at:
http://www.aish.com/holidays/shavuot/default.asp

An article I really enjoyed discusses Shavuot and the Greatful Dead. I wrote some of my own thoughts on Judaism and music here:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/05/shavuot-and-grateful-dead.html

Rebooting our devices and ourselves

2010-03-21T09:20:00.004-05:00

I've always believed that different people relate to the Torah in different ways, and that many people are turned off by one perspective who might be ignited by another. Judaism has so many values and benefits, and it's great to see people relating strongly to specific merits of a Jewish lifestyle.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/03/19/national.unplugging.day/index.html

New York (CNN) -- As the story goes, God spent six days creating the world and then rested on the seventh day. He told the Jewish people to always rest on the seventh day of each week, which was to become known as the Sabbath for them for eternity.

This was before Facebook, Twitter, BlackBerries and iPhones, of course. Adam and Eve didn't have friends who would get upset if texts weren't returned promptly, parents who wanted to know where their children were all the time or bosses who had complete access to their employees via work-issued devices. There is no excuse good enough to ignore the boss, even on a weekend.

But one group is trying to take back the Sabbath: Reboot -- a nonprofit organization aimed at reinventing the traditions and rituals of Judaism for today's secular Jews.

Composed of Internet entrepreneurs, creators of award-winning television shows, community organizers and nonprofit leaders, these "Rebooters" are people who typically have their cell phones glued to their palms. Several of them go so far as to say they have an addiction to their devices.

But this weekend they will be observing 24 hours of freedom from their devices: a National Day of Unplugging lasting from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-schwartz/disconnect-to-connect_b_506518.html

Here's a novel notion, grounded in science: Human beings aren't meant to operate like computers; continuously, at high speeds, for long periods of time, running multiple programs at the same time.

Instead, we're designed to pulse - to move rhythmically between spending and renewing energy. But we don't.

For the next 24 hours, beginning at dusk tonight, a group called Reboot Inc. is inviting all of us to participate in a National Day of Unplugging. For one day, they're asking us to turn off our email, resist checking Facebook, and reconnect instead with our families, our friends and most of all, with ourselves.

You're connected right now, of course. How many windows do you have open on your computer? Or perhaps you're reading this on your iPhone? When was
the last time you checked email, updated your status on Facebook or watched a YouTube video?

When was the last time you truly unplugged for more than two or three hours, not counting sleep?

We have too many ways to communicate with each other, too easily, about too little. The consequence is that we live in a world of utterly fractured attention.

The more hours we spend plugged in, without real renewal, the more we begin to default reflexively into behaviors that reduce our effectiveness and take a pernicious toll on others: impatience, frustration, anxiety and distraction.

Because so many of us are forever anticipating the next electronic communication - and responding with Pavlovian predictability - we're increasingly unable to invest our singularly absorbed attention or energy in any one person or activity.

Ironically, all this back and forth often leaves us feeling emptier and less connected. Tweeting and texting may keep us up to date, but they're a poor substitute for real connection.

It isn't only during the weekends that we need to unplug. Staying constantly connected takes a toll on our productivity and satisfaction at work, too. How much more could you get done if you turned off your email at certain times and stopped updating facebook and twitter so often?

Reboot's call to unplug for a day is plainly just a first step, but it's also a terrific opportunity to see how it feels to utterly eliminate the noise of technology from your life.

http://bayarea.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/so-long-the-new-take-on-the-old-sabbath-ritual-of-unplugging/

I am typing fast because at sundown (7:20 p.m.), I plan to join in the first National Day of Unplugging and turn my electronic devices off until sundown Saturday. The effort, reported in The New York Times and elsewhere, is the brainchild of Reboot, a nonprofit organization of Jewish professionals who want to adapt the concept of Sabbath traditions to the digital age.

Reboot home page: http://rebooters.net/

REPOST: Joseph, Egypt, and Magical Protection (VaYechi)

2009-12-29T06:39:00.001-05:00

The following is excerpted from the book Harry Potter and Torah and is posted here for this week's Torah portion, parshat VaYechi:

At the end of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone we learn of the magical protection that Harry received from his mother's love, particularly from her having sacrificed her life to save his:

"Why couldn't Quirrell touch me?" [Harry asked].

[Dumbeldore answered] "Your mother died trying to save you. If there is one
thing Voldemort can't understand, it is love. He didn't realize that love
as powerful as your mother's leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible
sign ... to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is
gone, will give us some protection forever." (Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer's Stone, chapter 17)

This concept is described later, in the fourth book, by the evil Voldemort himself:

"You all know that on the night I lost my powers and my body, I tried to kill
him. His mother died in the attempt to save him - and unwittingly provided
him with a protection I admit I had not foreseen ... I could not touch the
boy.
...
His mother left upon him the traces of her sacrifice ... this is
old magic, I should have remembered it, I was foolish to overlook it ...."
(Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, chapter 33)

We see this discussed throughout the books, how Harry has magical protection imprinted on him from his Mother's act of love and self-sacrifice.

Might anything like this "old magic" appear in the Torah?

We see an interesting analogue to this kind of magical protection at the end of the book of Genesis. After the death of Jacob, Joseph's brothers were afraid that Joseph would take revenge on them for having sold him into slavery. He comforts them by reiterating that all the events had been orchestrated by G-d to bring him to Egypt for a Divine purpose:

"You decided to do bad to me, but G-d thought of it for good, to cause the events on this very day, to keep the nation alive."[i]

What does Joseph mean by "on this very day?" The most straightforward understanding is that Joseph went to Egypt as part of a Divine plan for the entire region to be saved from the famine, and for the Jewish family to be able to relocate there.

The commentary Be'er Moshe, however, presents a very interesting alternative explanation, perhaps not as a literal understanding but as an allegorical lesson. The phrase "on this very day" is used in only one other place in the Torah's story of Joseph and his brothers, during Joseph's temptation by the wife of his master Potifar:

"And it came to pass, on this very day, that he went to the house to do his work, and none of the men of the house were home, that she (Potifar's wife) grabbed him by his cloak, saying 'come with me.' And he left his cloak in her hand and escaped, running outside."[ii]

What does Joseph's temptation by Potifar's wife have to do with Joseph's going to Egypt? Be'er Moshe explains:

"The righteous Joseph (in his reassurance to his brothers, that G-d had sent him to Egypt to keep the Jewish nation alive) wasn't referring to physical survival, for G-d had already promised (Abraham) that they would have a remnant (that would always survive). Rather he was telling them an amazing thing, that the hidden purpose for which he had been brought to Egypt first... was to face the enormous challenge (with Potifar's wife), ... because by withstanding the temptation he established the purity of life of all the Israelites, that they could resist the impurity of Egypt."[iii]

Rabbi Matisyahu Solomon[iv] uses this to illustrate a fascinating principle. Anytime a person overcomes a temptation to violate a Torah commandment, and manages to act in accordance with the Torah despite the temptation, he infuses his location, the ground or area he's on, with a spiritual energy that will help others succeed in carrying out G-d's will in that location.

Joseph was sent to Egypt by G-d so that he would face a strong temptation to do something immoral, and overcome it, thereby infusing Egypt with enough spiritual energy to enable the Jews to survive 400 years of slavery with their Jewish morality intact.

In fact, the Midrash says that when the Jews left Egypt, the splitting of the sea happened in the merit of Joseph. One of the Psalms that we say in the Passover Seder (and the Hallel prayer service) says that "the sea saw and fled." What did the sea see? The Midrash says that the sea saw the remains of Joseph that the Jews were transporting for burial in Israel. Because Joseph fled (VaYanas in Hebrew) from temptation, the sea fled (VaYanos) when the Jews needed it to. Because Joseph overcame human nature, the sea defied nature and split. Because of the continuing merit of Joseph's moral strength, the Jews were worthy of a miracle.

This same principle explains a number of other incidents throughout the Torah. For example, in Parshat Lech Lecha, when Abraham is seeing the Land of Israel for the first time, the Torah says that he "passed into the land as far as Shechem, to the plain of Moreh."[v] Rashi's commentary says that the significance of Shechem, mentioned as a point on Abraham's traveling to Moreh, is that he went there not just to see it, but "to pray for the children of Jacob who would later battle in Shechem." Similarly, Abraham then went and built an altar in Beit El, and Rashi[vi] says that he chose the location because "he had a prophecy that in the future his descendents would fall to temptation with the sin of Achan."[vii] In each case, Abraham prayed in a specific place to give spiritual protection to his descendents who would need help in the future at that very place.[viii]

We also see this concept in the famous story of Moses and the burning bush. Moses sees the burning bush and turns off his path to investigate. G-d then tells him to stop walking, because the ground around the burning bush was too holy for him to walk on, and to take off his shoes, because the ground he's already standing on is holy[ix]. What is the reason for the two levels of holiness, one in which he cannot stand and one in which he can stand but only with shoes removed? Rabbi Solomon explains that the area immediately around the bush was inherently holy, so Moses couldn't go there, and the area where Moses was standing had not originally been holy. But after Moses left his path to explore the burning bush, which he did with awareness of G-d's presence, the land on which he walked became holy as well. His religiously-inspired action infused the ground he was on with so much holiness that he had to remove his shoes.

As a final example, folklore tells us that the site of the Holy Temples in Jerusalem was selected because of acts of tremendous love and self-sacrifice between brothers that happened on that spot.[x]

We see that this little-known principle, that our good deeds infuse a location with positive spiritual energy, is a common denominator in all of the stories above. This same principle also can be seen in practical Jewish law.

The Shulchan Aruch[xi] rules that it is preferable in general to pray in a large synagogue rather than a small one, since "a large gathering is an honor to the King." The exception[xii] is that when the choice is between a small synagogue in which a lot of Torah study and good deeds are done throughout the day, and a large synagogue used only for prayer, the smaller one is preferable. Why? Isn't the larger crowd still an honor to the King? Rabbi Solomon explains that the influence of the spiritual energy from the study and good deeds done in the smaller synagogue will help our prayers, and this outweighs the larger size crowd of the other.

The Shulchan Aruch also rules on the value of a person's establishing a "makom kavu'ah le'tefilato," a designated place to pray in synagogue.[xiii] While doing so has many benefits, such as improved concentration, the primary reason is that a person's regular prayer will give spiritual power to the location, which will improve the power of future prayers there.

From all of these sources we see a tremendous but little-known Torah principle, that the good deeds that we do have a tangible effect on our surroundings that will give spiritual energy and protection to other people in those surroundings.
Could this kind of spiritual energy attach to a boy's skin instead of the ground in a particular place? Jewish sources do not seem to discuss it. Is this the "old magic" that protected Harry Potter, that Voldemort did not foresee? Even J.K. Rowling may not know. But if we pay attention to our surroundings, and to the mitzvot that have occurred there in the past, we may feel some of this spiritual energy in our daily lives.

For more about HARRY POTTER AND TORAH, see http://www.harrypottertorah.com/

[i] Gen 50:19-20
[ii] Gen 39:11-12
[iii] Be'er Moshe parshat VeYechi chapter 25
[iv] Scholar in Gateshead, England, and Lakewood, New Jersey, in the booklet Avita Nifla'os Mi'Torasecha, introductory chapter
[v] Gen 12:6
[vi] Rashi on Gen 12:8
[vii] Joshua chapter 7
[viii] In Beit Elokim (Sha’ar HaTefila chap 18), the Mabit discusses Abraham’s having engaged in all these prayers as part of his then-new role as patriarch of the Jewish nation.
[ix] Ex 3:2-5
[x] This story does not appear in any primary Midrashic sources, but is quoted heavily in modern books of folklore.
[xi] Shulchan Aruch Orach Chayim 90:18
[xii] Mishna Berurah 90:55
[xiii] Shulchan Aruch Orech Chayim 90:19

Book fair of authors living in Beit Shemesh - including Harry Potter and Torah

2009-12-01T06:51:00.004-05:00

I've always been amazed at the number of authors of Jewish books that all live in the Beit Shemesh / Ramat Beit Shemesh area. Now a local shul is organizing a book fair of books written by authors who live in the area. The schedule and list of authors/books is below.

For those readers who can't make it to the book fair, I've included links for as many of the books as I can.

We are pleased to announce the 1st Annual Beit Shemesh
Authors’ Fair
In memory of Charles H. Bendheim

To be held on:
Thursday 10th December 2009
Starting at 7.30pm
Menorat Maor Shul
Nachal Hamaor, Ramat Beit Shemesh

This will be a wonderful opportunity to meet
with local authors and buy their works.

Come meet:

Rabbi Chagai Bar Giora - חוקיך למדני
Rabbi Jonathan Duker – The Spirits Behind the Law: The Talmudic Scholars
Rabbi Ari Enkin – Dalet Amot: Halachic Perspectives ; Amot Shel Halacha: Halachic Insights
Rabbi Yehonasan Gefen - The Guiding Light
Gita Gordon - South African Journeys, Flashback, Mystery in the Amazon, Scattered Blossoms
Rabbi Karmi Gross - Mekor Habracha
Rabbi David Guedalia – Berach Dodi – A Multi-Faceted Approach to Verse, Chok L’David – Talmudic Readings in the Tradition of Darchei HaGemara
Rabbi Shalom Hammer - The Family Parsha Book; The Eibshitz Hagadda
Shoshana Kesner - Oh Baby! A guide to the 4th trimester
Dov Krulwich – Harry Potter and Torah
Rabbi Moshe Lichtman - Eim HaBanim Semeichah; An Angel Among Men; A Question of Redemption; What's the Purpose? ; Kitzur Messilat Yesharim (Hebrew)
Rabbi Dov Lipman – Discover, Timeout
Rabbi Zvi Miller - Ohr Yisrael: The Classic Writings of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter; Thirty Days to Teshuva; Living Mussar Every Day; The Salant Birchon; Windows of the Soul: Practical Guide to Controlling Your Eyes
Rabbi Yaakov Montrose - Halachic World vols. 1 and 2; Yoshev Ohalim
Rabbi Chaim Perlmutter – Grow With Gemara - A Hands-On Guide to the Study of Gemara; Tools for Tosafos - A guide to the study of Tosafos; Gemara Wisdom - Bava Metzia - A collection of articles concerning the moral aspect of the Torah monetary laws as they are taught in the Gemara
Rabbi Moshe Pinchuk – Kankanim (A Multifaceted Approach to Biblical Episodes), An Intro to the Study of Talmud Yerushalmi קנקנים – סוגיות מקראיות במבט רב תחומי, מבוא ללימוד התלמוד הירושלמי
Riva Pomerantz – Green Fences; Breaking Free
Rabbi Natan Slifkin – The Challenge of Creation; Sacred Monsters; Perek Shirah: Nature's Song; Man and Beast
Rabbi David Spektor
Penina Taylor - Coming Full Circle: A Jewish Woman’s Journey through Christianity and Back
Rabbi Tal Moshe Zwecker – MiPeninei Noam Elimelech

Magic and Knowledge - excerpt from a friend's speech

2009-11-01T07:22:00.003-05:00

The following is an excerpt from a friend of mine's speech at his son's recent Bar Mitzva.

Mazal tov to the family - I enjoyed this so much I thought I'd post part of it here.

Arthur C. Clarke, a science fiction writer from the golden age of the 1950 and 60's formulated the following three laws:

1) When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2) The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3) Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Being a science fiction fan, that last one about technology and magic has followed me all through my life. The past few years have been full of magic. Can you imaging living at the time of Avraham. If you suffered from kidney disease, you would probably never know it, until one day, you fell ill and within a few days, died from blood poisoning. One thing about kidney disease is that it is degenerative. Past a certain point, kidneys do not heal. You don't get better.

Rav Elyashiv recently ruled that it is forbidden to pray for a deathly ill person to be healed. The problem is that are not supposed to pray for miracles. We can hope for miracles, but we have no right to beseach God to change the natural laws. We can pray that there is a mistaken diagnosis; that a cure will be found, or for the sick person to have a better quality of life. But, you cannot ask for a degenerative disease to suddenly go away.

How blessed are we to live in a time where doctors can identify kidney disease, and can retard the progress of the disease. This would have been magical only 100 years ago, not to mention how foreign the concept of a diagnosis would have been at the time of Noach or Avraham.

Can you imaging explaining to an Egyptian that this team of people all dressed up in masks and gloves were going to remove a piece of a living person (without killing them), and then they would put that piece into someone else; the end result being two healthy people. Is there anything more magical or mystical?

The fact that we understand something about medicine and science does not preclude God's existence. The Rambam might say that God has blessed our whole generation with knowledge that extends our lives and treats our illnesses. The timing is the miracle. It came at just the right time to save .... Modern medication is miraculous. Like prayer, I don't need to know how it works, only that somehow, it does. Perhaps it is a placebo effect, perhaps is does something chemical, but whatever the scientific explanation, it looks like magic to me.

I want to thank God and the people in this room for all the miraculous events that have impacted us these past few years. In this room, we have social workers who can help alleviate pain and suffering; engineers, scientists, and educated professionals who know and understand things that would be clearly miraculous if you could take that knowledge back to the time of the bible. Being able to gather this knowledge, even for a family event would have taken months of travel and severe hardship during the time of the gemara.

To you, my friends and family, I say, Y'asher Koach. May you continue to be strong, to spread your knowledge and to use it for God's purposes.

To Hillel, I say, learn from these people. Knowledge is power to change the world for you and for others. Collect this knowledge. Never forget how lucky you are to live in times such as these. Don't waste that opportunity by treating it all like someone else’s magic.

Amazon's huge discount on Harry Potter and Torah

2009-10-21T23:08:00.003-05:00

Amazon is now offering Harry Potter and Torah at a hugely discounted price of $10.32, discounted from the standard price of $19.95! Grab it while the price lasts!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1847532373?tag=hpt-20

From ParshaBlog: Did Chava Speak Parseltongue?

2009-10-20T06:14:00.002-05:00

In Harry Potter and Torah I wrote a chapter on speaking animals, titled Talking Snakes and Human Souls, discussing the power of speech, the uniqueness of the human soul, and talking animals. In the course of this discussion I note that Eve may have been the world's first parselmouth.

Now I see that the ParshaBlog has written a very in-depth article titled Did Chava Speak Parseltongue? on the subject of talking animals. Definitely a good read for those interested in what Jewish sources say on the subject of talking animals.

REPOST: Harry's Good Heart and Yom Kippur

2009-09-25T09:41:00.001-05:00

Harry's good heart: Not just light, but happiness

Hi everyone! I only have a few minutes to write, but wanted to pass on a quick thought today, Erev Yom Kippur, the day that Yom Kippur starts.

(See here , here , and here and here for other Harry Potter related thoughts on Yom Kippur.)

We read repeatedly that Dumbeldore praises Harry for having a uniquely pure heart. This pure heart enables him to get the socerers stone, and to survive being posessed while Voldemort can't continue to posess him, and ultimately helps him defeat Voldemort at the end of the series.

In traditional Yom Kippur prayerbooks, before Kol Nidrei, there's a tradition to read the verse "Light is sown (saved away) for the righteous, and for the straight hearted, happiness" (or zarua la'tzadik, u'le'yishrei lev, simcha). This is a line that many ignore or miss as they come late for Kol Nidrei, or are simply looking forward to the higher profile Kol Nidrei prayer.

Rabbi Matisyahu Solomon wrote at length about this verse, and to summarize his message, the verse is telling us an important message. We spend the High Holidays thinking about being righteous, and how we can be more righteous. But we need to know that righteousness isn't the highest goal. Above being righteous is being straight-hearted.

Straight-hearted means not just doing the right thing, but having no deceit or ulterior motives or back-handedness in our hearts while we're doing whatever we're doing. There are many people who are righteous but not necessarily straight-hearted. But on Yom Kippur, when we're doing a "gap analysis" to see where we've fallen short in the past, and asking G-d for atonement for any mistakes we've made, it's important to have our eye on the biggest goal, being straight-hearted.

As I wrote above, I don't have time to expand on this, but I think that if we all think about it, and think about the intent behind the conversations in Harry Potter about Harry's pure heart and its importance and uniqueness, we'll have more to think about on Yom Kippur.

I hope everyone has a great Yom Kippur and an easy fast, and that we all have a new year with not only the light (clarity) of righteousness, but the happiness that G-d promises to the straight-hearted.

Kids and self-control

2009-09-23T01:12:00.002-05:00

I'm sure I'll think of a connection later to Harry Potter, but this is just a quick post about something I saw that I find fascinating: Psychological and Educational research on the importance of self-control. Certainly the connection to Judaism is obvious, especially during the time period between Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur where we're focusing on self-improvement.

The book that's discussed in the video is available here: http://qurl.com/8kcwg

Dumbeldore's repentance (teshuva) - a sign of a leader, or unbecoming of a leader?

2009-09-02T15:10:00.004-05:00

The period before Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur is always one of introspection, teshuva (repentance), and hopefully self-improvement. I wrote a series of articles a few years ago on examples of repentance in Harry Potter, and in the first article I listed Dumbeldore as an example of someone who clearly repented and changed his ways in the course of the story.

Deathly Hallows does a great job of portraying people's reactions to Dumbeldore's having made mistakes in his past. His opponents were thrilled to find something to "take him down" for, and even his followers (like Harry) were confused at the conflict between their image of their leader and the pictures they were seeing of his past. This is not different from all the revelations we see in newspapers nowadays, of politicians with questionable actions in their past.

The question is: Is Dumbeldore tainted by having consorted with Grindewald and planned anti-muggle activities? Or should he be judged only by who he is today?

This is a question that comes up often nowadays in how leaders are portrayed, both politicians and religious Jewish leaders. Is a President a worse President, or a worse human being, because of whether he inhaled drugs as a college student? Is a Rabbinical Scholar less wise, less worthy of following, or less leadership-worthy, because of whether he did something 30 years earlier that he wouldn't do today? Are the characters in the Torah less Sacred and less awe-inspiring if they did things that make them human and that we can learn from?

In the Harry Potter stories, I think the resounding answer is that Dumbeldore wouldn't have been Dumbeldore if he hadn't done what he did as a teen. Yes, it was painful for him later, but so much of his character, of his empathy, and of his understanding came from his living through his father's actions, his realizations about Grindewald, and his decision to move his life in the other direction.

This exact point is discussed in Harry Potter and Torah in a chapter titled Mudbloods Moabites and Moshiach. The chapter makes the point that the ancestors of King David, and thereby the ancestors of all Jewish Kings and of the Moshiach, have their roots in some very shady deeds. From Lot and his daughters to Yehuda and Tamar, we see why the Midrash says "I found King David my servant - where was he found? In Sodom!"

This is explained very clearly in the Hebrew book MiMa'amakim, which writes (page 95) as follows: In the period before Moshiach, the Jewish people will be in a dark and terrible state, and it will be the Moshiach's job to raise them to the highest levels. For him to have the power to do this, Divine Providence will have it that even the Moshiach's birth will reflect transforming definitive evil to the highest spirituality. Everyone alive will know that he has the ability to similarly transform all.

After all, don't we want leaders that have themselves accomplished the self-improvement and growth that we all aspire to ourselves? Don't we want leaders that can relate to us and inspire us?

The Talmud says that if we re-make ourselves on Rosh HaShana, G-d will credit us on Yom Kippur as a brand new creation, free of any of the baggage that we may have picked up along the way. Not only do leaders need to know how to do this, but we do as well.

I want to wish everyone a sweet new year and meaningful Rosh HaShana holiday. May we all be inscribed in the Book of Life and of all the Blessings possible.

Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur are coming soon...

2009-09-01T03:57:00.002-05:00

Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur are now officially a month away, and we've started the Jewish month of Elul in which we prepare for the holidays. In that spirit, here are links to some essays I wrote previously on Harry Potter themes related to the High Holidays:

Harry Potter and the Power of Repentance:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/08/harry-potter-and-power-of-teshuva.html

Percy's repentance:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/09/percys-teshuva-repentance-and-yom.html

Even Malfoy's or Wormtail's repentance counts:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/09/rosh-hashana-even-malfoys-or-wormtails.html

Harry Potter's advice of feeling remorse:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/09/yom-kippur-take-harry-potters-advice.html

More notes about repentance:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/09/final-thoughts-about-harry-potter-and.html

I hope that everyone has had a great summer, and hope to have more Harry Potter and Torah thoughts for you soon!

Harry Potter thought on Hirhurim blog - choosing beliefs

2009-08-31T02:22:00.005-05:00

Gil Student's fun-to-read Hirhurim blog has an interesting article on the discussion in Deathly Hallows of Harry's choosing what to believe:

Here is the first discussion (pp. 152-153):
"Well, in that interview," Harry went on, "Rita Skeeter hinted that Professor Dumbledore was involved in the Dark Arts when he was young."

"Don't believe a word of it!" said Doge at once. "Not a word, Harry! Let nothing tarnish your memories of Albus Dumbledore!"

Harry looked into Doge's earnest, pained face and felt, not reassured, but frustrated. Did Doge really think it was that easy, that Harry could simply choose not to believe? Didn't Doge understand Harry's need to be sure, to know everything?
And here is the second exchange (p. 185):
[Hermione:] "Harry, do you really think you'll get the truth from a malicious old woman like Muriel, or from Rita Skeeter? How can you believe them? You knew Dumbledore!"

"I thought I did," he muttered.

"But you know how much truth there was in everything Rita wrote about you! Doge is right, how can you let these people tarnish your memories of Dumbledore?"

He looked away, trying not to betray the resentment he felt. There it was again: Choose what to believe. He wanted the truth. Why was everbody so determined that he should not get it?

Gil omits the final example, where after burying Dobby Harry makes the decision to continue with the task that he was given on the basis of belief in Dumbeldore. I this that this has a strong message for us. We can debate belief all we want, but there are also times that we have to act, and need to choose our actions based on their own right-ness even when in principle we're not certain about the beliefs.

Thoughts?

Congratulations to Neal Hendel new Israeli surpreme court justice

2009-08-24T03:45:00.002-05:00

Mazal tov to Neal Hendel, newly appointed Israeli supreme court justice.

See the Jerusalem Post article here.

I knew Justice Hendel in Beer Sheva (not from in his courtroom). He's a real mentsh and a definite religious scholar in addition to obviously being a legal scholar.

Aish article on Harry Potter and Free Will

2009-08-23T07:37:00.003-05:00

I thought everyone would enjoy an article on aish.com titled Harry Potter and Free Will:

http://www.aish.com/sp/ph/52495892.html

It's highly related to the chapter in Harry Potter and Torah titled Destiny and Decisions.

Jewish Horcruxes (from a Rabbi in Connecticut)

2009-08-23T07:33:00.002-05:00

I came across the following MP3 recording of a sermon by Rabbi Daniel Cohen in Stamford CT, titled Harry Potter and the Jewish Horcrux, that I thought I'd link here:

http://rabbidanielcohenpodcasts.blogspot.com/2009/08/shabbat-sermon-harry-potter-and-jewish.html

I've always been sure that there were Jewish sources about soul-splitting. I'm still looking into the sources that Rabbi Cohen quotes - I'll post more if I find more ideas relevant to Harry Potter.

Enjoy! Comments welcome as always.

Making Tisha B'Av mean something

2009-07-30T11:15:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone, I haven't blogged for a while, even with the new Harry Potter movie out. But here it is on Tisha B'Av afternoon, and I just want to share some thoughts.

I spent the first half of the day today, from 8am until noon, at Tisha B'Av prayers with teaching and elaboration by Rabbi Yaacov Haber, a Rabbi I've been in contact with for 20 years but only now live in the same town. The prayers and Rabbi Haber's teachings, and most other teachings and writings about the day, revolve around two themes: (1) All the horrible events that have happened throughout history on Tisha B'Av, and (2) the Talmud's conclusion that the exile that we're mourning is Divine punishment for hatred between Jews.

Right now, though, I feel very frustrated. Jews the world over can mourn the exile, fast, say prayers remembering horrors throughout Jewish history, and discuss the problems with hatred between Jews. Then we go home, rest a bit, eat dinner when the fast day is over, and go back to our regular lives the next day. And unfortunately, there will be as much hatred between Jews tomorrow as there was yesterday.

I think we all need to do something really simple. We need to decide, each of us, what we can do to reduce hatred in the world, particularly hatred between Jews. Can we commit to trying to understand others instead of insulting them? Can we commit to doing something active to bring different groups of Jews together? Can we commit to doing something nice for people that we might not otherwise do?

It's very easy to focus on other Jews that need to do this more than us. Here in Israel it's easy to say that the REAL problems of hatred between Jews are the rioters, or the stone throwers, or the ..... But if we say that, nothing will change. We've all got to make a change.

If we can do this, maybe, with G-d's help, next year's Tisha B'Av can be a celebration instead of a fast day, and we can reach a Messianic state of true peace and understanding. If we want that, we need to make a step.

New book: Jewish Themes in Star Trek (not by me)

2009-05-17T23:00:00.003-05:00

This just got to market - I'm still waiting for my copy, but from what I've seen on-line, Jewish Themes in Star Trek finds Jewish lessons in Star Trek just as my book did for Harry Potter.

Enjoy!

Harry Potter ideas for the Passover Seder

2009-03-30T09:45:00.003-05:00

I was talking to a friend about the Passover Seder, and he mentioned that the 4 houses in Harry Potter can parallel the 4 sons in the Passover Seder. Or maybe the 4 cups. Or maybe the 4 phrases of redemption.

I'll post more between now and Passover about this and other ideas, but I want to open up a question to blog readers: Where else do you see Harry Potter ideas in the Passover Seder? Leave comments below, or e-mail me at author@harrypottertorah.com. I'll then post a complete list here, and we can all add some more Harry Potter to our Seders!

Sirius, Kreacher, and the Origins of Haman

2009-03-09T05:42:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone. I'm writing this in a hurry, without access to my books, since I want to get it out before Purim. Feel free to send me questions by e-mail (author@harrypottertorah.com) or leave blog comments, and I can elaborate the sources and the details. Happy Purim everyone!

Sirius, Kreacher, and the Origins of Haman

We read in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and several times in subsequent books, how Sirius's mistreatment of Kreacher the House Elf led to Kreacher's betrayal of Sirius to Voldemort. Harry gets upset at the implication that Sirius was at all responsible for what happened, but Dumbeldore (and later Hermione) stood firm that treating Kreacher the way Sirius did led to the hatred that fueled Kreacher's betrayal.

Ultimately, Harry learns from this, and changes his treatment of Kreacher and of others. Not only does this pay off in Kreacher's help for Harry, but Harry learns in the process that situations are complicated, and that the full story of Kreacher's life makes it very clear that he's worthy of better treatment than he received from Sirius.

We see the same thing regarding Jewish enemies. Haman, in the Purim story, is descended from the Biblical nation of Amalek, the arch-enemy of the Jewish people. Amalek attacked us on our way out of Egypt, and again before entering the Land of Israel, and again in the time of King Saul. The Amalek descendent Haman tried to kill all the Jews in the Purim story. And Jews tend to think of other enemies, such as the Nazis, as being descended at least ideologically from Amalek.

But why is Amalek the way they are? What made them our arch enemy?

Clearly all human beings have free will, and are responsible for bad things that they do even if they're pushed to do them by others. Sirius's mis-treatment of Kreacher doesn't take the blame off of Kreacher for betraying Sirius, and anything that we can say about the origins of Amalek will never take the blame off of them for things that they did to us. But by examining the origins of Amalek, we can learn something about our own behavior, as Harry did from Kreacher.

In Genesis, at the end of the Torah portion of Vayishlach, we read a long description of the desendents of Esav. This is thought of by many people as a fairly "boring" part of the Torah, listing who "begat" who. Why do we care about Esav's descendents?

In the middle of the lineage, we read that Esav's son Elifaz had a concubine named Timna, and that Timna gave birth to a son named Amalek. What's Timna's story, and what led her son to become arch-enemy number one of the Jewish people?

The Talmud tells us a fascinating story about Timna. Timna, says the Talmud, was born from an aristocratic family. She's described as the "daughter of Kings." But she heard about Abraham's family and their belief in monotheism, and she became determined to join Abraham's movement. Abraham, we know, was accepting many many converts to his new religion. The Torah refers to "all the souls that Abraham made in Charan." Timna wanted to be one such convert to Abraham's new religion.

Abraham, however, thought that Timna was not a true believer in monotheism. So he rejected her, and apparently did so in a way that she felt was rude. But she didn't give up, she waited a while and then went to Abraham's son Isaac (Yitzchak). Isaac also said no. So she waited a while and went to Jacob (Yaakov). And Jacob also said no. She became depressed, but was still determined to join the family. She ended up deciding to become a concubine of Elifaz the son of Esav, saying "it's better to be in a lowly position in this family than to be in a high position in another family." But because of her feelings for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, she gave birth to Amalek, who in the words of the Talmud "pushed at the Jewish people with two hands."

This story is tremendously powerful. The Talmud is putting responsibility for Amalek's origins on the shoulders of the Jewish forefathers!

The phrase "push with two hands" is Talmudic terminology for treating someone as altogether bad. The Talmud elsewhere tells us that in all circumstances we are obligated to push people away (if we have to) only with our left hand, and to simultaneously pull them closer with our right. Even if we have to push someone away, we have to do so in a way that brings them closer as well.

Note that the Talmud is not saying this only about converts. It applies to teachers who have to discipline students, parents who have to discipline children, and all Jews that ever have to admonish others. The Talmud says that we have to do this "le'olam," forever, in all circumstances.

Pushing people away with the left hand while bringing them closer with the right means that if we're pushing away one aspect of a person, we have to acknowledge at the same time that the person has many other qualities that are good. The goal in pushing someone away is not that they should be further away, but rather that their problematic aspects be pushed away and that the rest of them be pulled closer.

I think that it's not at all an exageration to say that Jews pushing each other away with two hands is destroying our society. Imagine if every time a Jew had to disagree with another Jew, it was done in a way that was designed to bring the other Jew closer in the process. No throwing stones, no insulting, no disregarding, just an attempt to disagree in a way that moves us towards, not away from, Jewish unity.

If we can all learn the lesson from Amalek's origins, and can all learn to follow the Talmud's command to always push people away only with one hand while bringing them closer with the other, then hopefully, with G-d's help, we can be redeemed from all of our current problems just as on Purim the Jews of Shushan were saved from Haman's threat.

Happy Purim everyone!

Purim: Magical book, the power of attribution, and rebounding curses

2009-03-02T10:05:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone!

With Purim around the corner, I thought I'd post links to previous Harry Potter and Torah articles that relate to the holiday:

The King's Magical Book:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/03/harry-potter-thought-for-purim-kings.html
The power of attributing ideas:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/06/quick-note-about-attribution.html
Rebounding curses:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2008/04/passover-salvation-and-voldemorts.html

Happy Purim everyone!

A book by Rabbi Noah Weinberg ZTzL

2009-02-09T08:34:00.003-05:00

Following up on my previous message about the passing of Rabbi Noah Weinberg, anyone interested in reading some of Rabbi Weinberg's ideas can check out his book titled Five Levels of Pleasure: Enlightened Decision-Making for Success in Life:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590791231?ie=UTF8&tag=hpt-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1590791231

Harry's mission, Yitro's hearing, and the life of Rabbi Noah Weinberg OBM

2009-02-09T05:46:00.003-05:00

For most of us nowadays it's hard to imagine changing around your life because of a mission that you feel, because of a drive to accomplish a specific job that you think is uniquely yours. We tend to go about our lives, doing what's right and doing what's right for us to do. But a life's mission? That's for more chivilrous times.

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows a lot of people try to talk Harry out of fulfilling the mission that Dumbeldore left him. Aberforth says it most bluntly, but the questions are raised throughout the book. Is it a realistic mission? Can he trust that it's the right mission? Can he trust that he understood the mission correctly? As we know, Harry stuck with it, made the fateful decision after Dobby's death that he was going to persevere, and in the end he was successful.

Last Thursday Rabbi Noah Weinberg died in Jerusalem. I didn't know him, I never met him, I only heard him speak a few times and read very little of his teachings. But from what I've learned and heard from others, and from what I saw on a video that he released a few years ago for Tisha B'Av, I think there's an amazing lesson that we all can learn from him. He was truly a man with a mission. Raised in the religious Yeshiva communities of Baltimore and New York, descendent of a long line of scholars, he had an experience in his youth that shocked him: he talked with Jews who knew nothing of Judaism. He spent the rest of his life, to his last day, establishing schools and adult education centers worldwide to teach Judaism to those who knew nothing about it.

At the time this was radical. The Yeshiva world was fairly insular and most scholarship was very inner-directed. But he was on a mission. He was driven to do everything he could to eliminate Jewish ignorance, eliminate assimilation and inter-marriage, and teach the beauty of Torah to people who had never been exposed to it.

He said of himself that he felt that he had not accomplished enough. The thousands and thousands of Jews that had learned in his institutions, and the entire genre of institutions that he inspired, were not enough as long as assimilation and intermarriage were on the rise. He set the highest standard for himself.

Many people are writing about him and many people are continuing his work in Jewish education. I encourage anyone interested to read the articles about him at http://www.aish.com and other sites on-line. The articles and the web sites all reflect the thoughts and feelings of people that are trying to follow in his footsteps.

But the rest of us can learn a lesson from him that I think is just as important. When we see something that inspires us, that gets us thinking about a mission that needs to be done, we can decide to embark on it. Life missions are not just for Rabbi Weinberg, and (le'havdil) they're not just for Harry, Ron, and Hermione, they're for us as well. If the world needs to be changed, and if we feel the ability and the inspiration to do it, than we can try to make the inspiration a reality.

In this upcoming Shabbat's Torah portion, we read that Moses's father-in-law Yitro (Yisro) heard something that caused him to leave where he was and join the Jewish people. Our sages tell us that he heard of the events of the Exodus from Egypt, that these events inspired him to change around his life.

Interestingly, the same statement by our sages tells us that other great people of the time also heard of the events of the Exodus, but that they were not themselves inspired to join the Jewish people or in any way to react to the events. Yitro had the inspiration and the ability to make the mission a reality, even when other great people could not.

If we can all learn this lesson from Yitro, from Rabbi Weinberg, and from Harry, and can grab onto inspiration and make it a reality, taking on life missions that can change the world or at least our little portion of it, then (G-d willing) Rabbi Noah Weinberg's name will truly be of Blessed Memory.

Facing the truth -- what would you do?

2009-01-07T17:01:00.004-05:00

All through Order of the Phoenix, Harry and Dumbeldore and the others have a very hard time conveying to others the truth of Voldemort's return.

This is a situation that we all can understand - sometimes the truth is so scary that a lot of people would prefer to ignore it.

I believe that this is exactly what's going on right now in Israel. Even as most governments of the world, even some Arab governments, are supporting Israel's need to defend its citizens against years of terror, others (especially the media) are refusing to accept the reality of Palestinian terror.

The video clip below conveys the point very well. Hopefully, if the world can realize the truth, we can find a way forward from there that will succeed in bringing true peace, peace without terror.

Harry Potter and Torah book on sale at Amazon

2009-01-07T05:34:00.002-05:00

Amazon now has Harry Potter and Torah available at a sale price of $17.95, down from the usual price of $19.95. They also have it eligible for free shipping.

Click here to check it out!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1847532373?tag=hpt-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1847532373

For a sample chapter that relates to this upcoming week's Torah portion, see a book chapter on Magical Protection.

Good article in Wall St Journal

2008-12-29T01:10:00.002-05:00

I recommend the following article to everyone interested in understanding the war underway in Gaza:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051182944538487.html

Israel finally defends its citizens

2008-12-27T16:53:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone. Here in Beit Shemesh we heard warplanes, and possibly missile explosions, today right before Shabbat lunch. As of now the news is good -- Israel appears to finally have done something right to defend its citizens against the thousands of rockets that have been fired from Gaza since Israel withdrew from Gaza.

We're all praying that the Israeli army finish its mission successfully, quickly, with as few casualties as possible.

Shalshelet: Dealing with temptation and uncertainty

2008-11-20T23:47:00.004-05:00

The Harry Potter books are filled with people who are having a hard time dealing with temptation, and are feeling a lot of uncertainty about what to do. In Deathly Hallows we see Xenophilius Lovegood trying to decide what to do when Harry visits:

'Would it be OK if we came in?' asked Harry. 'There's something we'd
like to ask you.'
'I ... I"m not sure that's advisable,' wispered Xenophilius. He
swallowed and cast a quick look around the garden. 'Rather a shock ... my
word ... I ... I'm afraid I don't really think I ought to -'
...
His good eye moved again to Harry's scar. He seemed simultaneously
terrified and mesmerised... He kept swallowing, his eyes darting between
the three of them. Harry had the impression that he was undergoing some
painful internal struggle.

Later, of course, we find out that he was torn over whether to help Harry or whether to turn Harry in to the death eaters in order to save Luna.

Many other times we see people in similar dillemas. The Malfoys are torn between their alliegence to Voldemort and their desire to save Draco. Harry is torn between searching for horcruxes and seeking hallows. Harry is also torn between believing in Dumbeldore and distrusting him.

The Torah identifies four people that epitomize dillemas. Each of them are marked with a special "trop" note, a special way of singing that word. This note is called a "shalshelet," and it appears only four times in the Torah. The note is shaped like a zig-zag line, signifying someone being torn between two sides, two possible decisions. The tune for the note is similar, a very long note sounding like someone going "back and forth" over a dillema.

The first shalshelet in the Torah was read in last week's Torah portion, VaYera. Angels go to the town of Sedom (Sodom) to destroy it, and save Abraham's nephew Lot and his family. As they lead them away, Lot is torn - does he stay in his town, his home, with his people, or does he leave with the angels? Gen 19:16 tells us "and he hesitated," and the Hebrew word, "va'yit'ma'ma," is marked with a shalshelet, telling us graphically and musically of Lot's dillema. Lot ends up saved from his indecision by the angels who "grabbed him by the hand" and led the family to safety.

The second shalshelet is in this Shabbat's Torah portion, Chayei Sarah. Abraham asks Eliezer his assistant to travel to Abraham's birthplace to find a wife for Abraham's son Issac. The Midrash tells us that Eliezer was conflicted about his task, because he truly wanted his own daughter to marry Issac. He knew that he could return to Abraham and say that he was unsuccessful, and Issac would likely marry Eliezer's daughter. Instead, as he arrived at his destination, overcome with indecision, the Torah tells us that he prayed to G-d for guidance and help in finding a suitable young lady. When the Torah tells us that Eliezer prayed, in Gen 24:12, the word is again marked with a shalshelet.

The third shalshelet is in the story of Joseph becoming a slave in Egypt, in the Torah portion of VaYeshev. After becoming a slave to Potifar, one of Pharoh's ministers, Potifar's wife attempts to seduce Joseph into immoral activities. Gen 39:12 tells us that "Joseph refused," again punctuated with a shalshelet. Joseph first tried to convince Potifar's wife that it would be wrong to do what she was suggesting, and then he simply ran out of the house.

The fourth shalshelet is found in an unlikely place, towards the end of the Torah when Moses is inaugurating Aaron's sons into their roles as priests (Lev 8:23). On the surface there's no dillema here, but the Midrash tells us that, similar to Eliezer, Moses wanted his sons to follow in his footsteps, but G-d decided that Aaron's sons would be priests but that Moses's own children would have no future role. In this case, the dillema didn't show itself in action, since Moses had the inner strength to simply perform the inauguration service. The shalshelet signifies how Moses felt, but he didn't let the feelings get in the way of what he had to do.

So we see in the Torah four different ways of dealing with dillemas:

1. Pray for Divine assistance (Eliezer)
2. Take active steps to reach the right decision (Yosef)
3. Just do the right thing, feel the dillema but don't act on it (Moses)
4. Fail the test (Lot)

Xenophilius Lovegood seems to have failed the test, and was saved from the consequences by Hermione. But Draco's parents passed, as much for self-interest as for doing the right thing. And of course Harry worked his way through his own dillemas, as victorious in his decisions as he is in his wandwork.

How are we at dealing with dillemas? If we can't just do the right thing, we can pray for clarity or we can take active steps to move away from temptation. Either way, if we want to succeed like Harry, one way is to learn the lesson of the shalshelet.

Donated 10% of book proceeds

2008-11-17T23:09:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that 10% of my proceeds from recent sales of Harry Potter and Torah was just donated to the Ahavat Yisrael school in Beit Shemesh. This was my periodic donation in keeping with my statement (not an oath or unbreakable vow) on the book cover that 10% of book proceeds would be donated to schools in Israel addressing the educational needs of recent immigrants.

Anyone who would like to donate to them or similar institutions, send me an e-mail and I'll give you the appropriate contact info.

Tales of Beedle the Bard coming out soon!

2008-11-17T10:46:00.000-05:00

J. K. Rowling's Tales of Beedle the Bard will be available soon, and can be pre-ordered now from Amazon! This will be a great gift, and a must-have, for Harry Potter fans.

Click here:

tp://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0545128285?ie=UTF8&tag=hpt-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0545128285

to pre-order the book now, for only $7.60

VaYeira: Mudbloods, Moabites, and Moshiach

2008-11-13T07:37:00.000-05:00

The following is excerpted from a chapter of Harry Potter and Torah, and never before published on-line. The complete version can be read in the book. Enjoy!

Mudbloods, Moabites, and Moshiach

Throughout the Harry Potter series we read (or hear) about the following question: How important is it for a wizard (in the world of Harry Potter) to have pure wizard ancestry? This is the conflict summed up well by Harry's friend Ron in Chapter seven of Chamber of Secrets, after Hermione is called a "mudblood" by another student (in the movie this is said by Hermione herself):

"Mudblood's a really foul name for someone who is Muggle-born, you know,
non-magic parents. There are some wizards who think they're better than
everyone else because they're what people call pure-blood.... I mean, the
rest of us know it doesn't make any difference at all."

Throughout the series this debate rages on, as Dumbeldore says to the Minister of Magic at the end of Goblet of Fire (chapter thirty six) :

"You place too much importance, and you always have done, on the so-called
purity of blood! You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is
born, but what they grow to be!"

What do you think the Torah says about the subject?

There is a surprising attitude towards "purity of lineage" at the end of Parshas VaYeira. After G-d destroys Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham's nephew Lot hides in a cave with his two adult-age daughters. Having seen their whole town destroyed by Divine wrath, they thought that they were the only people left alive in the whole world. The Torah describes what happened next:

"The older daughter said to the younger, 'Our father is old, and there is not any man [left alive] in the world [to marry us].... Let's give our father wine and get him drunk, ... and have children from him.' "[1]

They proceeded to carry out their plan, first the older daughter and then the younger. The Torah concludes the chapter:

"The older gave birth to a son, and called him Moav (meaning 'from the father' in Hebrew), the ancestor of the Moabites. And the younger also had a son, who she called Ben-Ami, the ancestor of the Ammonites."

This is not exactly the kind of story we expect to see in the Torah! Besides showing us Lot's family's moral depravity, why does the Torah tell us about this?

One answer lies in the role that the nations of Moav and Ammon have later in Jewish history. The book of Ruth details how Ruth, a Moabite woman, converted to Judaism and married Boaz the sage, and gave birth to the grandfather of King David. King David became the ancestor of all Jewish kings, and also of the future Messiah (Moshiach). As a Moabite, Ruth was descended from Lot's older daughter's son.

At the same time, the Book of Kings tells us that King Solomon married a woman named Naama the Ammonite, who, similar to Ruth, converted to Judaism and gave birth to King Solomon's successor. Naama, as an Ammonite, was descended from Lot's second daughter's son.

So we see an amazing thing here: Both of Lot's daughters had their descendants, from their immoral relationships with their father, included into the Jewish royal bloodline! The Moshiach will be descended on two sides from the union of Lot and his daughters! Hardly the noble bloodline that we expect!

The Midrash takes this one step further, saying that the very reason that Lot and his daughters were saved from Sodom was in order to give birth to nations that would lead to the Moshiach:

"[The angels said to Lot] 'Go, take your two daughters who are found here...'[2]. Rabbi Tuvia the son of Rabbi Isaac said, This alludes to two who were found: Ruth the Moabite and Naama the Ammonite. Rabbi Isaac said: The verse[3] says 'I found King David my servant,' where was he found? In Sodom!"[4]

This Midrash is saying, in terse Talmudic style, that when the angels told Lot to take his daughters from Sodom, the reason was that Ruth and Naama had to descend from them. In other words, the immoral relationships and their consequences were actually part of G-d's Divine plan for the royal and messianic bloodline! The Midrash then identifies Sodom, the city so immoral that it had to be Divinely destroyed, as the root source of King David, the place where King David's origins can be found.

If we look more closely, we see that King David's and the Moshiach's roots in impurity go beyond Lot and his daughters. Boaz, Ruth's husband, is from the tribe of Judah. In the Torah portion of VaYeshev[5] we get a look at the early days of the tribe of Judah.

Until shortly after Talmudic times, the practice was that when a husband died without having had children, his younger brother would marry his widow (Levirite marriage) in order that the original husband's family line continue through his wife.[6] Judah, however, prevented his younger son from marrying his older son's widow, as the Torah describes:

"Judah took a wife named Tamar for his first-born son Er. But Er was evil in G-d's eyes, and he died.... And Judah told Onan [his middle son] to marry his brother's wife, to carry on his brother's family... but he did wrong in G-d's eyes, and he also died. Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, 'live as a widow in your father's house until my [third] son Shla grows up.' He was worried that Shla would also die. Tamar went to live in her father's house, and the years went by."

The Torah continues: "After a long time, Judah's wife died, and he went to supervise the shepherds.... Tamar took off her widow's clothes, and covered herself with a veil, and sat at the entrance of the wells....

"Judah saw her and thought she was a prostitute. He turned aside to her on the road, not realizing that she was his daughter-in-law...."

The Torah continues to tell us that Tamar became pregnant from Judah, and gave birth to twins, one of whom was Peretz, the ancestor of Boaz the sage, who married Ruth and was the great-grandfather of King David.

This is amazing! Events seem to have been Divinely orchestrated so that King David's ancestry on both Ruth and Boaz's sides would come from highly ignoble circumstances. (And we haven't mentioned the questionable appearance of how Ruth and Boaz met!) This seems to hardly be fitting for a king, let alone the Moshiach!

The Midrash[8] makes an interesting point about great people with murky ancestry:

"Who can withdraw purity from impurity? Abraham came from Terach [an idol-worshipper], Yoshiah from Ammon, Mordechai from Shimi, Israel from the nations, the messianic world from this world. Who could do this? None but G-d!"

The Midrash seems to be saying several things.

First, there is no limit to the purification that a person can achieve. No one is ever lost from morality, spirituality, or a successful and productive life. A descendent of Yehuda's relationship with his daughter-in-law can marry a descendent of Lot and his daughter, and give birth to King David and the Moshiach. G-d can always withdraw purity from impurity.

Second, G-d in fact crafts the events in the world, specifically the seemingly-improper events, to bring about His Divine purpose. Every event, every action, and every decision will be woven into G-d's plans for the world.

Third, seemingly immoral people and events may contain the building blocks for the noblest of G-d's Divine plans for the world. These building blocks are hidden in the "shells" of impurity, waiting to be released (with Divine assistance) by people who choose to "plug in" to G-d's plan through their choices and actions.

But why is this particularly found in the royal and messianic families? Shouldn't royal families have pure origins, and the above lessons be taught in other places? Rabbi Yehuda Leow, known as the Maharal of Prague, provides a deeper understanding of things, explaining as follows:

"The King Moshiach will be descended from other nations, as King David's line is descended from Moav and King Solomon's from Ammon. The reason is that when G-d wants to bring a new element into existence, it needs to be a new creation, different from what came before, otherwise it wouldn't be truly new. Therefore, when G-d wanted to bring the Moshiach's family into existence, He did it in a way that created a new element... specifically out of the non-Jewish nations, and the further away from perfection the roots were, the more the result was a new creation. That is why G-d started with Ammon and Moav, because there were no nations further from morality and perfection that Ammon and Moav.... Because of that, they are the ideal source for G-d's new creation."[10]

Other sources take this even further. The whole goal of the Moshiach is to elevate the Jewish people (and the whole world) from the immoral and violent state of the pre-Messianic world to the moral and peaceful world of the Messianic era. This will be accomplished by a person who himself came from immoral roots and achieved moral and spiritual perfection. As one commentary explains:

"Immediately before the Moshiach's arrival, the Jewish people will be in a dark and terrible state, the worst ever... and it will be the Moshiach's job to raise them to the highest levels. For him to have the power to do this, Divine providence will have it that even the Moshiach's birth will reflect transforming definitive evil to the highest spirituality. Everyone alive will know that he has the ability to similarly transform all."[11]

This is why, the Maharal says, Moses grew up in Pharoh's house, as the son of Pharoh's daughter. The redeemer of the Jews in Egypt, and the leader of the Jewish people for 40 years in the desert, had to be someone who had himself grown from an impure Egyptian environment to the highest of the Jewish prophets.

Based on everything we have said, it seems that the Almighty deliberately wants some great people, with the most exalted roles, to come from less-than-noble circumstances!

Returning to our original question, we see that being a "mudblood" is not only OK, it gives someone an important ingredient for greatness that a "pure-blood" will never have: the demonstrated ability to rise from less-than-noble roots and achieve greatness. Whether this point will be shown in the Harry Potter series is up to J.K. Rowling, but we can all hope to see it soon in the real-world Moshiach, as well as in our own lives.

As Dumbeldore said: "It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be."

[1] Gen 19:31-33
[2] Gen 9:15
[3] Psalms 89:21
[4] Midrash BR 50:10
[5] Gen Chapter 38
[6] This process was obviously only carried out with the wife's agreement, and was stopped when society changed and younger brothers stopped being able to do this with the proper motivations.
[8] Bereisheet Rabba 19:1
[10] Maharal, Netzach Yisroel Chapter 32
[11] Mi'maamakim vol 1 p. 95

REPOST: Fawkes the Phoenix in Noah's Ark

2008-10-29T22:48:00.000-05:00

Could Fawkes, Dumbeldore's immortal phoenix, have been in the Garden of Eden or on Noah's Ark?Read the answer in the following excerpt from Harry Potter and Torah, which was printed in the Washington Jewish Week last July:

Was Fawkes the Phoenix on Noah's Ark?

When we think about Noah collecting the animals to bring into the ark, most of us tend to imagine lions and tigers, cows and rams, and other "regular" animals. After all, Torah does not talk about mythical animals like those found in Harry Potter.

Or does it? Might Fawkes the Phoenix have been on Noah's ark?

The Talmud tells the following midrashic story about Noah on the ark:"Noah found the phoenix hiding in the bottom of the Ark. He said to it, 'Don't you want food?' It replied, 'I saw you were busy, and did not want to trouble you.' He said to it, 'May it be God's will that you never die.' "

The midrash elaborates on the phoenix's immortality as follows: "It lives for a thousand years, and at the end of this thousand years, a fire emerges from its nest and incinerates it. A volume equivalent to an egg is left, which grows limbs and lives." The Prophet Job refers to the phoenix's immortality when he says "Like a phoenix I increase my life's days."

So we see the magical phoenix quite clearly in Torah literature! This sounds just like Dumbeldore's explanation to Harry in the middle of Chamber of Secrets (chapter 12):

"Fawkes is a phoenix, Harry. Phoenixes burst into flame when it is time for
themto die and are reborn from the ashes."

Interestingly, the same midrash gives a second, very different explanation of the phoenix's immortality: "Eve fed the animals and birds from the Tree of Knowledge. They all listened to her, except for one bird, called the phoenix."

Since all people and animals were immortal until eating from the tree of knowledge, the phoenix's not eating from the tree of knowledge meant it would never die.

So which is the reason that the midrashic phoenix lives forever? Is it because it did not eat from the tree of knowledge, or because of Noah's blessing?

Commentaries on the midrash give two possibilities. One is that the sages simply disagree, that the sage quoted in the midrash attributes the phoenix's longevity to the Garden of Eden, and the sage quoted in the Talmud attributes it to Noah's blessing.

The second possibility is that the phoenix's longevity was earned in two stages. It lives a long time, and does not die a natural death like other animals, because it did not eat from the tree of knowledge. Then Noah's blessing added to its immortality, either by giving it the process of rejuvenation by burning up and being reborn, or by giving it Divine protection from hunters and accidents.

Many commentaries, however, take all the biblical and midrashic discussions of the phoenix to be metaphorical. The Book of Job, for example, used the bird as a metaphor for long life, and did not refer to actually seeing one. Both the above stories from the midrash can be understood this way, as lessons about the importance of caring for other people's difficulties (the midrash of Noah) and about doing the right thing in the face of a temptation (the midrash of Eve). Each, according to the midrash, merits a lot of Divine reward, metaphorically earning long life or immortality.

Other commentaries say that the phoenix is used by our sages as a metaphor for "the soaring of the intellect, which continues even when man's body becomes weak." Others see the phoenix as a metaphor for the Jewish people throughout history, often appearing "burnt up" but always being reborn.

All in all, the magical phoenix has left us a lot to think about. Anyone intrigued by the existence of magical animals has no shortage of Torah sources for them. And anyone looking for metaphors for a soaring intellect or the everlasting Jewish people need look no further.

But, most important, we see two things that we can think about in our own lives, doing what is right when we're given a temptation not to (as in the story of Eve) and caring that others not work too hard for our own sake (the story of Noah). According to the midrash, these are how immortality is earned, either real or metaphorical. Even without spells or incantations, our own behavior can be as hot as a phoenix.

Interested in more about magical creatures in Torah? Harry Potter and Torah discusses talking snakes, owl post, and more! I also recommend Rabbi Slifkin's new book Sacred Monsters.

2008-10-27T08:14:00.001-05:00

I think that a lot of fans of Harry Potter and Torah will like a new book written by my neighbor Rabbi Dov Lipman, called Timeout: Sports Stories as a Game Plan for Spiritual Success:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1932687963?tag=hpt-20&creativeASIN=1932687963

The book is a great collection of lessons learned from sports, and how they relate to Jewish teachings. From Michigan's "Fab 5" to Rick Barry to Gilbert Arenas, there's no end to the lessons that can be learned from sports stories.

Enjoy!

Harry Potter thoughts related to the story of creation

2008-10-19T23:21:00.000-05:00

On Simchat Torah we re-start the Torah cycle from the beginning, starting with the creation story. The following articles from the Harry Potter and Torah blog relate to the creation story:

I hope everyone has a great holiday!

Starting the new Torah cycle

2008-10-19T23:15:00.000-05:00

If you haven't bought Harry Potter and Torah, now's the time!

We're about to start the new cycle of Torah portions back at Bereisheet (Genesis), and Harry Potter and Torah has chapters for every Torah portion in Bereisheet, along with many throughout the rest of the Torah. So you can have Harry Potter perspectives for every week's Torah portion!

Below is the full table of contents. Click here to buy it now!

In the Beginning There Were Magic Words
Talking Snakes and Human Souls
Day of Rest, Day of Magic
Noah's Care of Magical Creatures
Owl post, Raven post, and dove post
Ghosts and curtains
Mudbloods, Moabites, and Moshiach
Whomping Willows & Monotheistic Maples
Everyday Magic, Everyday Miracles
Nicolas Flamel and the Children of Ketura
When One Rises, the Other Will Fall
Destiny and Decisions
Magic Wands
Go to the Hippogriff, thy Sluggard
Creating Bodies
Rights of Magical Creatures
Dreams: Divination or Digestion?
Everything Happens for a Reason
We are as Strong as we are United
Magic Shows: Kosher Fun or Idolatry?
Magical Protection

Laws of a Sukkah according to Dr. Seuss

2008-10-16T06:28:00.000-05:00

I just came across this on a few other Web sites, and thought that readers of Harry Potter and Torah would enjoy it:

You can build it very small (1)
You can build it very tall (2)

You can build it very large (3)
You can build it on a barge

You can build it on a ship (4)
Or on a roof but please don't slip (5)

You can build it in an alley (6)
You shouldn't build it in a valley (7)

You can build it on a wagon (8)
You can build it on a dragon (9)

You can make the s'chach of wood (10)
Would you, could you, yes you should

Make the s'chach from leaves of tree
You shouldn't bend it at the knee (11)

Build your Succah tall or short
No Succah is built in the Temple Court

You can build it somewhat soon
You cannot build it in the month of June (12)

If your Succah is well made
You'll have the right amount of shade (13)

You can build it very wide
You can not build it on its side

Build if your name is Jim
Or Bob or Sam or even Tim

Build it if your name is Sue (14)
Do you build it, yes you do!

From the Succah you can roam
But you should treat it as your home (15)

You can invite some special guests
Don't stay in it if there are pests

You can sleep upon some rugs
Don't you build it where there's bugs

In the Succah you should sit
And eat and drink but never...

If in the Succah it should rain
To stay there would be such a pain (16)

And if it should be very cold
Stay there only if you're bold

So build a Succah one and all
Make it large or make it small

Succah rules are short and snappy
Enjoy Succos, rejoice be happy.

Footnotes:

1. Maimonides (RMBM) Mishne Torah, Hilchot Succah, Chapter 4, Section 1. The minimum height of a Succah is 10 tefachim. A tefach is a measure of the width of the four fingers of one's hand. My hand is 3 1/4 inches wide for a minimum Succah height of 32 1/2 inches. The minimum allowable width is 7 tefachim by 7 tefachim. This would result in a Succah of 22 3/4 inches by 22 3/4 inches.

2. The maximum height is 20 Amot. An Amah is the length from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. My Amah is 15 1/2 inches for a maximum height of 25 feet. Others say that 30 feet is the maximum.

3. According to RMBM the Succah can be built to a width of several miles. Shulchan Aruch also says there is no limit on the size of the width.

4. RMBM Hilchot Succah Chapter 4, Section 6.

5. RMBM Hilchot Succah Chapter 4, Section 11. RMBM states that one may construct a Succah by wedging poles in the four corners of the roof and suspending s'chach from the poles. The walls of the building underneath are considered to reach upward to the edge of the s'chach.

6. RMBM Hilchot Succah Chapter 4, Section 8-10 discusses the ins and outs of building your Succah in an alley or passageway.

7. There is a location referred to in the Talmud called Ashtarot Karnayim. According to the discussion there are two hills, with a valley in between where the Sun does not reach. Therefore it is impossible to sit in the shade of the roof of the Succah. I can't find the reference...hopefully next year.

8. RMBM Hilchot Succah Chapter 4, Section 6. You can go into a Succah built on a wagon or a ship even on Yom Tov.

9. RMBM Hilchot Succah Chapter 4, Section 6. OK, RMBM says a camel but dragon rhymes with wagon a lot better, don't you agree. Anyway, RMBM says you can build your Succah on a wagon or in the crown of a tree, but you can't go into it on Yom Tov. There is a general rule against riding a beast or ascending into the crown of a tree on Yom Tov.

10. Chapter 5 deals with the rules for the s'chach. Basically, you can use that which has grown from the ground, and is completely detached from the ground. So, for example, you cannot bend the branches of a tree over the Succah to form the s'chach. But you can cut the branches from a tree and use them as s'chach.

11. This would be a violation of the rule cited in the prior footnote.

12. Shulchan Aruch, Hilchot Succah, Perek 636, Section 1. The Succah should not be built sooner than 30 days before the Chag. However, if the structure is built prior to 30 days, as long as something new is added within the 30 days, the Succah is kosher.

13. Of course it's a well known rule that you must sit in the shade from the roof of the Succah and not in the shade that may be cast by the walls. It seems that this might affect the height of the walls, depending on the longitude of the location where you are building your Succah.

14. Technically, women, servants and minors are exempt from the Mitzvah of Succah. In our day we hope we know better than to read out half the Jewish people from the observance of Mitzvot. Of course, that's just a personal opinion of the author.

15. RMBM ibid Chapter 6, Section 6 explains that you should eat, drink and live in the Succah for the 7 days as you live in your own home. One should not even take a nap outside of the Succah.

16. RMBM ibid, Section 10. If it rains one should go into the house. How does one know if it is raining hard enough? If sufficient raindrops fall through the s'chach (roof covering) and into the food so that the food is spoiled - go inside!

Harry Potter thoughts in preparation for the High Holidays

2008-08-31T04:48:00.000-05:00

Sorry everyone that I haven't written Harry Potter and Torah essays for the past several months -- in the past six months I've gotten remarried, moved two homes into a new home, and taken a blended family on a vacation abroad. It hasn't been boring!

Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur are now officially a month away, and we've started the Jewish month of Elul in which we prepare for the holidays. In that spirit, here are links to some essays I wrote previously on Harry Potter themes related to the High Holidays:

Harry Potter and the Power of Repentance:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/08/harry-potter-and-power-of-teshuva.html

Percy's rependance:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/09/percys-teshuva-repentance-and-yom.html

Even Malfoy's or Wormtail's repentance counts:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/09/rosh-hashana-even-malfoys-or-wormtails.html

Harry Potter's advice of feeling remorse:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/09/yom-kippur-take-harry-potters-advice.html

More notes about repentance:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/09/final-thoughts-about-harry-potter-and.html

I hope that everyone has had a great summer, and hope to have more Harry Potter and Torah thoughts for you soon!

Harry Potter ideas related to the story of the Spies (Shlach)

2008-06-15T14:46:00.000-05:00

Here are links to three Harry Potter and Torah articles I wrote last year:

The importance of self-confidence discusses the Torah's message that self-confidence and self-image determines a lot of how others see us and how successful we are, as much as our abilities:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/06/story-of-spies-and-importance-of-self.html

Magical wisdom and the magical Land discusses the magical wisdom that Jews can get from the air of the Land of Israel:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/06/magical-wisdom-and-magical-land-shlach.html

Fighting the right battles discusses the importance of fighting the true enemies:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/06/order-of-phoenix-and-fighting-right.html

More soon!

Harry Potter and Torah reader feedback

2008-06-13T07:16:00.000-05:00

Anyone deciding whether to buy my book Harry Potter and Torah can read some reader comments here, including a new comment just left by a reader:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2008/01/harry-potter-and-torah-reader-comments.html

If you've read the book and have comments of your own, feel free to click the "Post a comment" link below, and leave your own opinion!

Ever-lasting fire

2008-06-13T02:20:00.000-05:00

In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix we learn about Gubraithian Fire , ever-lasting fire that's hard to conjure, that Dumbeldore makes as a gift for the giants.

The Torah tells us that the Tabernacle and the Holy Temple also had ever-lasting fire. In this week's Torah portion (Be'ha'a'lot'cha) we see Aaron commanded to light the Menorah. The Torah elsewhere tells us that this light has to be an ever-lasting fire that Aaron and his descendants are commanded to keep lit. This is commemorated nowadays by the "ner tamid" that virtually every synagogue has, a constantly burning light that shows us that Divine light is always coming into the world.

I plan to write more about this in the future, but for now, I encourage everyone to read an interesting article on the significance of ever-lasting fire, on the TorahLab web site at:
http://www.torahlab.org/calendar/article/a_history_of_the_shechinah/

Pesach Sheni and second chances

2008-05-19T08:06:00.000-05:00

Several times in the Harry Potter series Hagrid says:

Great man, Dumbeldore... He gives people second chances, see...

We see this also with Snape's story at the end of Deathly Hallows.

Pesach Sheni is a minor holiday, celebrated today (May 19, 2008), where the Torah teaches us the principle of second chances. 3300 years ago, when the first Passover holiday was celebrated a year after the Exodous from Egypt, some of the Jews had missed celebrating the holiday because they weren't in a state of purity to be able to bring the Passover offering. G-d told Moses that they could do so a month later.

While we don't truly celebrate Pesach Sheni in any way nowadays, since we can't bring the Passover offering at all, we still remember Pesach Sheni as the day that G-d taught us about second chances. If someone has the desire to do the right thing, there will always be a second chance for them to do so.

Voldemort, Palestinian terrorists, and the fight against evil

2008-05-18T16:20:00.001-05:00

At the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, we see the Minister of Magic so stunned by the idea of Voldemort's return that he can't bring himself to believe it.

"You-know who ... returned? Preposterous... you - you can't
seriously believe that. ... It seems to me that you are all
determined to start a panic that will destabalize everything we have worked
for...."

In later books we see him even more unable to consider Voldemort's return, unable to bring himself to face the facts, because of what it would mean.

Ultimately, of course, the facts became clear, and the wizarding world had to fight against Voldemort without the benefit of an earlier start.

It seems to me that the same thing is happening now, in much of the Western world, regarding Arab terror. Acknowledging the reality of Arab terrorists that kill out of hatred, not for a goal that we can understand but simply out of hatred, is too hard for people to handle. Like the Minister of Magic, people need to find something else to believe, anything else to believe, rather than face the fear of Arab terror.

Like "Cedric Diggory's death was an accident!" we hear "All they want is land for a state," ignoring that when given land they chose terror over building a state. Like "Barty Crouch was just a lunatic," we hear "They're mad at Israel for putting them in refugee camps," ignoring the fact that Egypt and Jordan put the Palestinians into refugee camps, not Israel. Like "Harry's making it all up!" we hear that the Palestinians only want a state on the West Bank and Gaza, forgetting that they said no to exactly that at Camp David ten years ago.

Like the Minister of Magic, the world will wake up eventually to the fact that responsibility for terror must be on the terrorists, and that the civilized world cannot excuse terror as a valid means to an end. And like the end of Deathly Hallows, we'll eventually reach a point where evil is destroyed and peace can spread.

Hopefully it won't take seven books for us to get to that point.

Chassidic Raggae and rebounding curses

2008-04-22T07:13:00.002-05:00

I was thinking more this morning about my message from a few days ago about Passover Salvation and Voldemort's rebounding curses, and I realized that this is in fact the message of Matisyahu's song "chop 'em down."

The song is basically a raggae version of the Passover story of the exile and exodus from Egypt, from Joseph's being sold as a slave to the Jewish people leaving Egypt and the splitting of the sea. But it starts with the line "from the forest itself comes the handle for the axe -- chop 'em down, chop 'em down...."

The point seems to be the same one I made in that previous message -- that the power to defeat evil comes by utilizing something of the evil itself in our combat. Chopping trees is done with some wood in the axe, and defeating Voldemort used his own actions against him.

You can hear Matisyahu's "Chop 'em down" here.
And can buy the album I was listening to here.

I hope everyone had fun Passover Seders, and is having a great holiday!

More on Passover and Unity

2008-04-17T06:36:00.002-05:00

(See here for a completely new Harry Potter related thought about Passover.)

I wrote previously about the importance of unity, both in Harry Potter and in Torah thought, particularly around Passover:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/03/passover-thought-related-to-harry.html

A friend of mine wrote another note about Passover and unity, noting that we start the Passover Seder with an invitation to others to join us at our Seder, underscoring the importance of Jewish unity specifically on Passover.

I'd like to add two additional thoughts about Passover and unity.

First, in the discussion in the Hagadah of the four sons, we see that the wicked son, the "rasha," would apparently still have been saved from Egypt despite being wicked, until he excludes himself from the people of Israel. Only excluding oneself from the Jewish collective results in the Hagadah saying that were he to have been in Egypt he would not have been saved. Being wicked in the first place was not as bad as excluding oneself from unity with the rest of the Jewish people.

Second, we say at the beginning of the Hagadah "not just once have our enemies rose up against us." If you look carefully at the Hebrew, the literal translation is "that not only one, our enemies rose up against us." I saw commentaries that interpret this to say that our enemies will always rise up against us when we're not one, when we're not unified together.

I hope that all of our Passover Seders can lead to the strong Jewish unity that we need.

Happy Passover everyone!

Passover salvation and Voldemort's rebounding curses

2008-04-17T05:40:00.000-05:00

A lot of people have discussed a particular aspect of Harry's victory over Voldemort at the end of Deathly Hallows, that in fact Harry didn't destroy Voldemort, rather Voldemort killed himself, with a curse that rebounded on him when it collided with Harry's curse. I've written previously (here) that I actually don't like this aspect of the story, since I think that Harry should have killed Voldemort directly, but as I write below, there's a definite analogue to this in the Torah.

In fact, we see throughout the Harry Potter stories that Harry's defeats of Voldemort are most often because of something that Voldemort himself did. When Harry was a baby he defeated Voldemort because of Voldemort's having killed Harry's mother unnecessarily. The same enabled Harry to defeat Quirrel (posessed by Voldemort) at the end of Sorcerer's Stone. Harry beats Voldemort at the end of Goblet of Fire because of Voldemort's wand. He escapes Voldemort at the end of Order of the Phoenix because of Voldemort's damaged soul. Over and over, Harry defeats Voldemort because Voldemort's own actions turn against him.

This is a theme that we see throughout the Torah as well. Jewish salvation is very often enabled specifically by the things that our enemies themselves do.

In the Passover story, we know that Moses was raised in Pharoh's house, as Pharoh's son. The plagues are each brought as a consequence of Pharoh's actions as well. In the Purim story, Haman's downfall is due to Esther's position as queen, which was a result of Haman and the King's immoral process of choosing a new queen.

This is even hinted in the Passover Hagadah, in the song "ve'hee she'amda." We say "This (G-d's pact with Abraham) supports us forever, because not only once but in every generation someone stands up against us (the Jews) to destroy us, but G-d always saves us from their hands." The phrase "from their hands," in Hebrew "mi-yadam" (מידם), hints to us that G-d's salvation always utilizes our enemies "hands" in bringing about our salvation - G-d always saves us through our enemies hands.

Besides learning about the nature of Divine salvation, that it seems to operate similar to Voldemort's rebounding curses, we can see a new perspective on things that others do to us. Not only do we know that G-d will always save us, we can look at things that our enemies do as the potential sources of our future Divine salvation.

I'd like to wish everyone a happy and meaningful Passover, both the seder and the holiday itself.

Discussion of Harry Potter and Torah on Israeli radio

2008-04-14T03:45:00.000-05:00

Yesterday (Sunday) I was on Israeli radio station Arutz Sheva discussing Harry Potter and Torah. It was a lot of fun talking with the show's host Walter Bingham, who asked me a lot about religious opposition to Harry Potter, and why I maintain that books like Harry Potter and Torah are important despite the concerns.

You can listen to the radio program at the following web addresses:

Streaming: mms://msmedia.a7.org/arutz7/shows/ww/walter080413.mp3

Download MP3: http://msmedia.a7.org:82/arutz7/shows/ww/walter080413.mp3

Thanks to Walter and Arutz Sheva for the fun program and the great radio station!

On the radio...

2008-04-13T08:59:00.001-05:00

In a few minutes I'll be on Internet radio from Israel:

http://www.israelnationalradio.com/

Another look at Harry Potter and Passover

2008-04-03T05:32:00.000-05:00

With Passover (Pesach) coming up, I thought I'd remind everyone of some Harry Potter related ideas that I've posted before:

Magical Protection at the splitting of the sea
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/01/harry-potters-magical-protection-book.html

Passover and Unity
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/03/passover-thought-related-to-harry.html

How is Matza like a Bogart?
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2008/01/repost-why-did-harry-potters-boggart.html

For a Passover thought related to the movie Titanic, see:
Titanic and the Passover Hagadah
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/03/passover-haggadah-and-movie-titanic.html

Enjoy!

Afikomen present for Harry Potter fans

2008-03-27T09:38:00.000-05:00

Looking for an afikomen present for Harry Potter fans?

If they're teenagers or older, how about the book Harry Potter and Torah?

You can buy it through Amazon or Barnes and Noble, or at Jewish bookstores in New York, New Jersey, Seattle, and Israel.

More information is available on the book's home page or blog, or by e-mail at author@harrypottertorah.com

Site for mobile blog browsing: mippin.com

2008-03-27T05:45:00.000-05:00

I'd like to suggest that anyone browsing here on a cellphone or mobile device check out http://www.mippin.com/

It's a site for browsing on a cellphone that restructures sites, especially blogs and news sites, to fit well on a cellphone-sized screen. Their biggest innovation is working specifically with blogs and news sites, using RSS to get just the content.

Here's how the Harry Potter and Torah blog looks through Mippin:

Each article can be browsed and read easily, and note that the picture at the bottom is shown at a size that's appropriate for the screen.

But when I browse to the blog directly, instead of using Mippin, I see the following rendition of the blog, as written for a computer screen but shown on the cellphone:

and then when I scroll down, I see this:

All in all, Mippin makes blogs and (reportedly) news sites much easier to read.

Recommended!

Harry Potter and Purim

2008-03-19T10:09:00.000-05:00

Purim is coming!

For a Harry Potter related thought about Purim, you can see an article I wrote last year titled The King's Magical Book:

http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/03/harry-potter-thought-for-purim-kings.html

I also related to Purim briefly in talking about the power of attributing ideas to people who said them.

There are several more Purim-related ideas in Harry Potter and Torah, and I'll try to write more between now and Purim. But I want to take this chance to wish everyone a fun and happy Purim!

Dov Krulwich
http://www.harrypottertorah.com/

Back in stock in Ramat Beit Shemesh

2008-03-06T05:18:00.000-05:00

Harry Potter and Torah is now back in stock in Yerid HaSefarim in Ramat Beit Shemesh. It's also still in stock at Sefarim Ve'Od in Beit Shemesh.

In the USA, you can buy it at J Levine Judaica in Manhattan, Judaica House in Teaneck, and Tree of Life Judaica in Seattle.

Or of course, you can buy it on-line from anywhere.

Love, relationships and souls

2008-02-24T15:36:00.000-05:00

In a previous message, I opened with the question of whether Snape's so-called love for Lily was in fact true love, and discussed the Torah's perspective on the purpose of relationships. I'd like to now discuss this from a different angle.

Several times throughout the Harry Potter series, Dumbeldore tries to teach Harry about the difference between Voldemort's mutilation of his soul and Harry's pure soul characterized by his ability to love. But what does the ability to love have to do with the soul? Isn't love simply an emotion, that can be felt by anyone regardless of the state of their soul?

The Talmud has interesting discussion about how Adam and Eve were created. According to one of the sages, Adam was first created with two faces, essentially comprising Adam and Eve in a single being. When G-d seperated Eve from Adam, He essentially split a double being into two single beings.

What's the point? Was Adam the Torah's version of Dr. Doolittle's PushMePullYou?

Commentaries elaborate that the splitting of Adam and Eve into two beings should be seen as a lesson for married couples throughout time. The Torah's ideal marriage is when a couple see themselves as two halves of the same being, with a single set of goals, aims, and even feelings, which collectively are accomplished by the two of them. It might be building a home together, raising children together, or changing the world together. It might be each person accomplishing different things that collectively fulfill their shared dreams. It might be a lot of things. But it should reflect shared feelings.

The Zohar takes this one step further. The Zohar says that every person has only a half a soul, and the other half of each person's soul is the half-soul of their soulmate. A "soulmate" is just that -- the person whose half-soul is the exact mate of the other's half-soul.

So we see a clear connection between love, love in a relationship and by analogy Harry Potter's ability to love, and the proper state of a person's soul. A person who can love is a person whose soul is in the shape that it was created, the half-soul that will perfectly match their soulmate's half-soul.

There's a lot more to say about this concept, interested readers can read this article for more exploration.

Any opinions or feelings on the subject? Feel free to leave comments below!

For Hebrew speakers: הארי פוטר והתורה

2008-02-10T15:30:00.000-05:00

To any Hebrew speakers (non-English readers)...

הבלוג הזה עבור הספר הארי פוטר והתורה
שנכתב באנגלית
אם אתם מעוניינים לקרוא בנוסא הזה ולא יכול לקרוא באגלית
בבקשה תשאיר הערה פה
או תשלח דו'א ל
author@harrypottertorah.com

דב קרולוויץ

NYC's J Levine Judaica now selling Harry Potter and Torah

2008-02-05T18:37:00.000-05:00

To all you New Yorkers who want to see a copy of Harry Potter and Torah before buying it, head over to J Levine Books at 5 W 30th Street in Manhattan.

Besides having copies in their store, they're also selling it on-line.

Magical snow

2008-01-30T17:06:00.000-05:00

Several of the Harry Potter books mention snow, and talk about Hogwarts students bewitching snowballs to fly at other kids or into high-up windows.

As you may have heard, it's snowing right now in the truly magical city of Jerusalem, which is a once-every-few-years experience.

In honor of the snow in Jerusalem, I thought I'd write a little bit about what Jewish writings say about snow.

Of course, we all know that snow is somewhat magical from a purely scientific perspective. In general, all substances in the world contract as they get colder. This is part of the fundamental way that the elements work. But water is the one element that actually gets somewhat bigger as it freezes, absorbing air. If this didn't happen, water life would be destroyed when a lake froze, since it would be dragged to the bottom under sinking ice. But because of this unique property of water, the tops of lakes freeze, the ice floats and provides insulation, and lake life is preserved. Snow also provides a layer of insulation for everything under it. Just another magical property of the world that enables life.

So what do Jewish writings say about snow? I found some fun things in a book called "HaNoten Sheleg" that was written in Israel (in Hebrew) a few years ago.

The one mystical thing I found about snow is that kabbalistic writings connect snow to forgetfulness. This is because the gematria numerical value of the word snow, "sheleg" (שלג) is the same as the gematria of the word forgetfulness, "shikcha" (שכחה). Based on this, books of kabalah teach that anyone who takes snow, especially freshly-fallen snow, and rubs it on his forehead three times, while concentrating on the letter "alef" (א), will earn Divine help in remembering things, against forgetfulness.

I certainly don't claim to understand Kabalah, but I saw this quoted from the AirZal and Rabbi Chayim Vital.

Personally, for anyone who wants a magical remedy for forgetfullness, I have another suggestion: study!

Other Jewish writings concerning snow are less mystical.

For example, there is a debate between scholars whether eating snow (or ice cream) is considered drinking or eating. If you put snow in your mouth, are you eating something or drinking something? This has some ramifications in Jewish law. For example, if eating snow is considered eating, then eating a handful will need a blessing to be said afterwards. But if eating snow is considered drinking, since a handful of snow is actually a tiny amount of water, no blessing will be needed. For eating it depends on solid volume, for drinking it depends on liquid volume. The consensus seems to be that snow, as well as ice cream, is considered more like drinking than eating, and so no blessing is required afterwards.

Another debate among scholars is whether it's permitted on the Sabbath to make and throw a snowball. Some say that taking a bunch of seperate "stuff" like snow, and constructing from it a new thing (the ball) that didn't exist before, is considered an act of creation, and would be prohibited (Shmitas Shabbos Ke'Hilchasa, Rivevos Efrayim). But others say that snowballs don't last long enough to be considered creations, since they will either break apart, or melt, or mix into other snow, so making them is permitted (Be'er Moshe, Piskei Teshuvos).

I hope all Jerusalem readers continue to enjoy the snow, and that everyone has a great winter!

Harry Potter and Torah reader comments

2008-01-24T18:20:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! I just read the comments left by readers on Amazon. One commenter didn't seem to have read the book, but thought that the book must be an insult to Torah. Another commenter had read the book, and complained that the book was too much Torah.

Maybe I can introduce the two commenters to each other?

Comments from readers are always welcome, either here on this blog (just click on "comments" below), or at Amazon, or by e-mail to author@harrypottertorah.com

Snape's love for Lily: True love?

2008-01-20T18:24:00.000-05:00

I've been wanting to write about this subject for a while. I mentioned previously when I first commented on Deathly Hallows that I didn't think that Snape's love for Lily was true love, but rather seemed like obsession to me. But in the style of Harry Potter and Torah, I wanted to write about it based on a Torah perspective.

In the meanwhile, I happen to have gotten engaged a few weeks ago, so the subject has been on my mind. (Love, that is, not obsession.)

So, was Snape's so-called great love for Lily true love, or not?

I think that the starting point is to see what the Torah says a relationship is all about. Why do couples love each other?

Many people have the impression that a religious marriage is only for the purpose of having children. Certainly having children is a mitzva, and the Torah commands us to "be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and tame it." This is a mitzva, a commandment, and obviously a reason to get married.

That said, I think that it's clearly not the reason that relationships exist.

In the book of Genesis, in the story of the creation of mankind, the Torah tells us that G-d said "it is not good for man to be alone," and then proceeded to create the entire gender distinction in human beings. After G-d seperated men and women into two distinct genders, the Torah says "therefore a man leaves his parent and joins his wife."

It's clear from this that the entire creation of relationships in the world was for a simple reason: it's not good for people to be alone. We've been created, straight from the beginning of Creation, in way that it's better for us to be in a relationship.

So phase one of my conclusion about Snape and Lily was that whatever there was between them, it wasn't true love, at least not from the Torah's perspective. True love needs a relationship, needs two people to be together, not to be alone. Lily was with James, and Snape was apparently alone his whole life. That's not a relationship in the sense that the Torah tells us that people should have.

Obviously there's a lot more to write about this. The Torah elsewhere defines "love" as doing for others. The ethical book Michtav MiEliyahu (translated into English as Strive for Truth) defines love as doing for another without wanting to get anything in return. But I'll stop here for now, and write more later.

Comments are very welcome, just click on the "comments" or "post a comment" link just below this message)

Repost: Why did Harry Potter's "boggart" effect him like a "dementor?" (Parshat Beshalach)

2008-01-15T05:42:00.000-05:00

I posted this article in two parts about a year ago, when we last read the Torah portion of Beshalach that we read this upcoming Shabbat. It doesn't appear in the book Harry Potter and Torah, but is written in the same style.

I'd like to start with a question from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (the 3rd book and movie):

Why did Harry Potter's "boggart" effect him like a "dementor?"

As background to the question, "boggarts" and "dementors" are both fictional magical creatures from the Harry Potter stories. Each one has magical powers that we learn about in the 3rd book.

Dementors are introduced in chapter ten, as Professor Lupin explains to Harry: "Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth... they drain peace, hope and happiness out of the air... get too near a dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory, will be sucked out of you... you'll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life...."

Boggarts are introduced in seven, as Hermione answers in Defense class: "(A boggart) is a shape-shifter... It can take the shape of whatever it thinks will frighten us most." As the story continues, the boggart proceeds to take the forms of whatever will most frighten the student closest to it. When Harry Potter faces a boggart in chapter twelve, it takes the form of a dementor, and, as dementors do, it causes Harry to relive the worst experiences of his life.

But this brings us to a question: Boggarts only take the form of whatever will frighten us, they don't actually become those things. The boggart facing the defense class didn't actually become Neville's grandmother or a mummy, it just looked exactly like them. So when Harry faces the boggart that looks like a dementor, why should it effect him like a dementor does?

Believe it or not, we can see a perspective on this question from the Torah. Obviously beggarts and dementors aren't real, but the Torah does talk about things that are analogous to shape-shifting creatures in Harry Potter. To ask a more general question: if something has the ability to magically take the form of something else, would it have the essence of that thing, or only the form of that thing?

In the Torah we learn of the manna ("mon" in Hebrew) that Divinely fell from the sky when the Jews were in the desert after leaving Egypt. The Midrash (Shmot Raba) says that the manna contained the tastes of all foods, and that it magically tasted like whatever the person eating it wanted it to taste like. Someone who wanted pizza would eat manna that tasted magically like pizza. Someone who wanted steak would have manna that tasted magically like steak.

Rephrasing our question from above, did the manna in the desert remain essentially manna, and simply taste like steak or pizza, or did it actually take on the essence of the pizza or steak? To explore this, we can consider a few discussions in Torah literature in which this distinction between taste and essence is important.

Suppose on Passover in the desert the Jews had taken manna and desired it to taste like matza, the unleavened bread eaten at the Passover Seder. Could they then have eaten this manna/matza at their Seder and fulfilled the commandment to eat matza? The Ritva commentary on the Talmud (Kiddishin 38a) describes the sequence of events when the Jews arrived in the Land of Israel after the forty years in the desert. Ritva says that the Jews ate manna until the 16th day of the Jewish month of Nissan, as described in the Torah, but that on Seder night, on the 16th day of Nissan, they ate matza made from new crops of wheat. (This is significant in the Talmud's understanding some of the Torah's laws about agriculture.) This implies that the manna could not be eaten to fulfill the Seder's requirement of matza, and that the Jews had to instead eat from the new wheat crop. We can infer from this that according to the Ritva the manna did not take on the essense of the food being desired, only the taste.

Other Torah sources, however, are of the opposite opinion. The Igra De'kalla (*) is reported to have been of the opinion that manna could have been eaten as matza, and the appropriate Blessings could have been said exactly as if regular matza were eaten.

Suppose someone took a piece of manna and desired that it taste like a cheeseburger, a pork chop, or another non-Kosher piece of food. Would the manna have the non-Kosher taste, and would the eater transgress the Kosher laws by eating it? This too is the subject of a disagreement among Torah authorities. The Chiddushei HaRim (*) (from the Gerrer chassidic dynasty) stated that the manna would not take on the forbidden taste, implying that the manna does take on the essence of the desired food, and that G-d prevented it from causing a transgression. But the Chida (*) stated that the manna could in fact taste like forbidden foods, and that it was permitted to eat it, the obvious implication being that the manna adopted the taste but not the essence of the desired food.

Like many areas of Torah literature, we're left with a Rabbinic disagreement over whether manna adopted the essence or just the taste of the food that was desired. While Rabbinic disagreements in practical areas are most often decided conclusively, since people need to act in accordance with one of the opinions, in non-practical areas of Torah thought there is often no conclusive answer. This appears to be one of those times.

Returning to our original question, it appears that the Chiddushei HaRim and the Igra De'Kalla are of the opinion that something that magically takes on the form of something else also takes on the actual essense of the thing. This is analogous to Harry Potter's boggart effecting him like a dementor. But the Chida and the Ritva seem to say no, taking on attributes of something doesn't mean taking on the essense of the thing. In the analogy to Harry Potter, this would lead us to conclude that Harry's boggart should not have effected him in this way.

Obviously these analogies are meant for fun, to make us think about Torah concepts in new and interesting ways, and should not be taken too far. (See the preface of Harry Potter and Torah for more on this.) That said, we have seen some Torah thought that seems very analogous to the issue in Harry Potter, and this Torah thought is also something that many of us have not previously considered.

So if anyone reading this comes across some manna right before Passover, I do not suggest eating it as matza at your seder. But if you're reading Harry Potter (or anything else), and some interesting thoughts come to mind, remember this: Somewhere, somehow, Torah literature has discussed the subject.

...

Torah sources marked with an (*) are those that I have not yet seen in the original, but were quoted in secondary sources. For more in-depth coverage of this subject, see the fascinating article in English by Rabbi Ari Zivitofsky, "Bacon bits and non-Kosher taste."

Harry Potter and Torah back in stock in Israel

2007-12-31T17:20:00.000-05:00

Harry Potter and Torah is now back in stock in Israel. Send e-mail to author@harrypottertorah.com for stores in your area or to buy it directly from the author.

The physics of flying carpets

2007-12-24T00:25:00.000-05:00

This isn't really Harry Potter and Torah oriented, since it's not about Torah, and since flying carpets are illegal in Harry Potter's world, but I thought it might interest everyone anyway...

New Scientist discussed new research by a Harvard mathematician discussing how a carpet could actually fly. Click here to see New Scientist's discussion, or here for information on the research publication.

While I'm at it, I see this article at New Scientist that discussed the physics of levitation, and also makes reference to invisibility cloaks. It also says that if you wanted to levitate a small ball, it would be best to use gold. Golden Snitch, anyone?

The Torah says (e.g., Gen 1:28) that we are commanded to "be fruitful and multiply, fill the land and master it" (in Hebrew, kiv'shu'ha). Some commentaries say that mastering the world includes understanding how the world works. Might this make Physics and Math articles about levitation a fulfillment of a Biblical command?

Starting Exodus (Sh'mot) the Harry Potter way

2007-12-23T10:52:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while, life's been busy. I'll catch up with a few articles over the next few days.

As we start reading the book of Exodus (Sh'mot) in the weekly Torah portions, everyone might enjoy my article about Moses, the Egyptian, and the killing curse.

Of course, Harry Potter and Torah has several chapters relating to the book of Exodus, including the chapters on magical wands, magical protection, and unity.

Harry Potter and Torah ideas about the story of Joseph

2007-11-28T01:49:00.000-05:00

Now that we're starting to read the Torah portions concerning Joseph and his dreams, descent to Egypt, and rise to power there, I thought I'd post links to book chapters and blog messages that relate. Besides the message I just posted on Joseph and the power of love, there's:

The Divine Hallows: Torah analogies to book seven's Deathly Hallows
Magical Protection: Magical protection like that which Harry received from his mother's sacrifice
Unity: A lesson to learn from Joseph's coat of many colors

And of course, see the book for more!

Harry Potter, Joseph, and the power of love

2007-11-27T20:07:00.000-05:00

The following is revised from a previous post I made right before Book 7 came out.

Harry Potter, Joseph, and the Power of Love

Throughout the books we've read of Dumbeldore's belief that love is the the most powerful magic. Early in the series this seems to be a very abstact concept, such as in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when Voldemort tries to magically enter Harry's brain but is unable to do so when Harry thinks about his love for his father-figure Serius. But in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Price (chapter 23) the magical power of love is given a more concrete meaning:

[Dumbelore said:] It will take uncommon skill and power to kill a wizard
like Voldemort....

"But I haven't got uncommon skill and power," said Harry, before he could
stop himself.

"Yes, you have," said Dumbeldore firmly. "You have a power that Voldemort
has never had. You can ---"

"I know!" said Harry impatiently. "I can love!" It was only with difficulty
that he stopped himself from adding "Big Deal!"

"Yes, Harry, you can love," said Dumbeldore, who looked as though he knew
perfectly well what Harry had just refrained from saying. "Which, given
everything that has happened to you, is a great and remarkable thing. You are
still yoo young to understand how unusual you are, Harry."

...

"It is essential that you understand this!" said Dumbeldore, standing up
and striding about the room, his glittering robes swooshing in his wake. Harry
had never seen him so agitated... "It is Voldemort's fault that you were able to
see into his thoughts, his ambitions, ... and yet, Harry, despite your
priviledged insight into Voldemort's world... you have never been seduced by the
Dark Arts, never, even for a second, shown the slightest desire to become one of
Voldemort's followers!"

"Of course I haven't!" said Harry indignantly. "He killed my Mum and
Dad!"

"You are protected, in short, by your ability to love!" said Dumbeldore
loudly. "The only protection that can possibly work against the lure of power
like Voldemorts! In spite of all the temptation you have endured, all the
suffering, you remain pure of heart...."

"But sir," said Harry, making valiant efforts not to sound argumentative,
"it all comes to the same thing, doesn't it? I've got to try to kill him,
or---"

"Got to?" said Dumbelore. "Of course you've got to! But not because of the
prophecy! Because you, yourself, will never rest until you've tried! ...
Imagine, please, just for a moment, that you had never heard that prophecy! How
would you feel about Voldemort now? Think!"

Harry ... thought of his mother, his father, and Sirius... A flame seemed
to leap inside his chest, searing his throat.

"I'd want him finished," said Harry quickly. "And I'd want to do it."

... He understood what Dumbeldore had been trying to tell him. It was, he
thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to
teh death and walking into the arena with your head held high... Dumbeldore knew
-- and so do I, and so did my parents -- that there was all the difference in
the world.

We see here that Harry's power of love is a concrete power that gives him magical motivation and strength against the black magic of Voldemort.

In the Torah this power of love, power based on relationship and based on emotion, is the power of Joseph. Joseph is the dreamer. Joseph is the only man in the Torah to be described in terms of his good looks (Gen 39:6, compare with 29:17, 24:16). Joseph is appointed leader of Egypt in a role that seems to be much more about the image of leadership than about management (Gen 41:42-43). And Joseph's blessing from his father is focused on his relationships (Gen 49:22).

On the other hand, the power of the strong rational and intellectual leader is Judah (eg Gen 44:18). Judah took charge of the plan to sell Joseph into slavery (Gen 37:26). And from Judah ultimately came King David and the royal line of kings. Judah was the source of Jewish leadership.

But, as an interesting analogue to the Harry Potter story quoted above, Judah did not have the power to withstand strong temptation from Tamar (Gen 38:15-16) while Joseph DID have the power to withstand similar temptations from Potifar's wife (Gen 39:12). Judah lost his Jewish purity in dealings with non-Jewish tribes (Gen 38:1, Rashi there) while Joseph fought to maintain Jewish seperation in Egypt (Gen 46:34).

However, as the paradigm of leadership by emotion and love and relationship, Joseph is held to a tremendously high standard. Joseph's relationships HAD to be altruistic and for the sake of the greater good. A tiny bit is self-interest (Gen 40:14) caused Joseph to be held in prison for two extra years (Gen 41:1, Rashi). If someone is going to be driven by love and emotion, it must be pure. Emotion of self-interest will not succeed.

Ultimately, the salvation of the Jews in Egypt started with Joseph, and only after that was Judah the leader. And ultimately we are told by the Prophets that Jewish salvation will come from the joining of forces between Joseph and Judah. "Take a stick, and write on it 'for Judah,' ... then take another stick and write on it 'for Joseph,' ... Join them together into one stick, so that they are one in your hand... behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the nations.. and will gather them on every side, and bring them to their own land" (Ezekiel 37:16-21, Haftara of VaYigash).

Ultimately the mission of the Jewish people is to combine these two approaches, as Harry had to in Book 7 in order to defeat Voldemort.

Quick note on Israel-Arab meetings in Anapolis

2007-11-27T00:34:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! I've always worked hard to keep my writings about Harry Potter and Torah and my writings and posts about Israel seperate, since people interested in one are often not interested in the other. But anyone following the meetings in Anapolis, or the peace process in general, might be interested in the following links, which raise issues that tend to be ignored in the press. The first is an article from the Wall Street Journal, the second is a letter I wrote in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/opinion/l09brooks.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119604260214503526.html

or you can see these collected at: http://israel-letters.blogspot.com/

I'll have more Harry Potter and Torah articles here in the upcoming week!

Angels use accio, conjunctivitis, and colloportus?

2007-10-28T01:06:00.000-05:00

Couldn't help noticing the following verses describing the Angels rescuing Lot from Sodom:

"The townspeople shoved Lot, and tried to break down his door. The Angels sent forth their hands, bringing Lot towards them into the house, and closing the door. And the people in the doorway were struck with blindness..." (Gen 19:9-11)

The Hebrew word at the end, "sanverim," is usually translated as I said above, "blindness," but presumably is referring to some kind of eye disease.

So the angels help sounds a lot like use of accio (summoning), colloportus (door closing), and conjunctivitis (eye-damaging) curses!

Boston's Jewish Advocate: Teaching Torah by Magic and Spells

2007-10-22T15:43:00.000-05:00

This week's Jewish Advocate, published in Boston, has an article about Harry Potter and Torah titled Teaching Torah by Magic and Spells. Here's an excerpt and link:

When Dov Krulwich had some trouble engaging his young children in religious discussion around the Shabbat table, he turned to the narrative sensation that has been engaging children and adults alike the world over: Harry Potter. In the years since, Krulwich has grown his idea into a book, and “Harry Potter and Torah” was published in March.

“I found that if I could make analogies between the Jewish texts and Harry Potter, suddenly they were interested,” said Krulwich, 42, a Maryland native who now lives in Bet Shemesh, Israel. “The adults would become more interested, too.”

(Continues...)

http://www.thejewishadvocate.com/this_weeks_issue/news/?content_id=3865

Start the Torah cycle the Harry Potter way

2007-10-19T00:40:00.000-05:00

If you haven't bought Harry Potter and Torah, now's the time! We've just started the new cycle of Torah portions back at Bereisheet (Genesis), and Harry Potter and Torah has chapters for every Torah portion in Bereisheet, along with many throughout the rest of the Torah. So you can have Harry Potter perspectives for every week's Torah portion!

Parshat Lech Lecha (Oct 20) has a chapter on ghosts, and also relates to the chapter on Magical Protection. Parshat VaYeira (Oct 27) has the chapter with my favorite title: Mudbloods, Moabites, and Moshiach, and also a chapter titled Whomping Willows and Monotheistic Maples. (To see more sample chapters on-line, see the book's home page.)

Below is the full table of contents. Click here to buy it now!

In the Beginning There Were Magic Words
Talking Snakes and Human Souls
Day of Rest, Day of Magic
Noah's Care of Magical Creatures
Owl post, Raven post, and dove post
Ghosts and curtains
Mudbloods, Moabites, and Moshiach
Whomping Willows & Monotheistic Maples
Everyday Magic, Everyday Miracles
Nicolas Flamel and the Children of Ketura
When One Rises, the Other Will Fall
Destiny and Decisions
Magic Wands
Go to the Hippogriff, thy Sluggard
Creating Bodies
Rights of Magical Creatures
Dreams: Divination or Digestion?
Everything Happens for a Reason
We are as Strong as we are United
Magic Shows: Kosher Fun or Idolatry?
Magical Protection

Lecha Lecha and Harry Potter's magical protection

2007-10-14T15:31:00.000-05:00

In the Torah portion of Lech Lecha we see Abraham's aliya to Israel, during which travels through the land, stopping in Shchem and building an altar in Beit El.

Would you believe that Abraham's doing this is similar to Harry Potter's mother dying to save Harry's life? Check out this previous blog message about Harry Potter's Magical Protection, which is an excerpt from the book Harry Potter and Torah.

Fawkes the Phoenix in the Garden of Eden and Noah's Ark

2007-10-08T01:02:00.000-05:00

Could Fawkes, Dumbeldore's immortal phoenix, have been in the Garden of Eden or on Noah's Ark?

Read the answer in the following excerpt from Harry Potter and Torah, which was printed in the Washington Jewish Week last July:

Was Fawkes the Phoenix on Noah's Ark?

When we think about Noah collecting the animals to bring into the ark, most of us tend to imagine lions and tigers, cows and rams, and other "regular" animals. After all, Torah does not talk about mythical animals like those found in Harry Potter.

Or does it? Might Fawkes the Phoenix have been on Noah's ark?

The Talmud tells the following midrashic story about Noah on the ark:

"Noah found the phoenix hiding in the bottom of the Ark. He said to it, 'Don't you want food?' It replied, 'I saw you were busy, and did not want to trouble you.' He said to it, 'May it be God's will that you never die.' "

The midrash elaborates on the phoenix's immortality as follows: "It lives for a thousand years, and at the end of this thousand years, a fire emerges from its nest and incinerates it. A volume equivalent to an egg is left, which grows limbs and lives." The Prophet Job refers to the phoenix's immortality when he says "Like a phoenix I increase my life's days."

So we see the magical phoenix quite clearly in Torah literature! This sounds just like Dumbeldore's explanation to Harry in the middle of Chamber of Secrets (chapter 12):

"Fawkes is a phoenix, Harry. Phoenixes burst into flame when it is time for them
to die and are reborn from the ashes."

Interestingly, the same midrash gives a second, very different explanation of the phoenix's immortality: "Eve fed the animals and birds from the Tree of Knowledge. They all listened to her, except for one bird, called the phoenix."

Since all people and animals were immortal until eating from the tree of knowledge, the phoenix's not eating from the tree of knowledge meant it would never die.

So which is the reason that the midrashic phoenix lives forever? Is it because it did not eat from the tree of knowledge, or because of Noah's blessing?

Commentaries on the midrash give two possibilities. One is that the sages simply disagree, that the sage quoted in the midrash attributes the phoenix's longevity to the Garden of Eden, and the sage quoted in the Talmud attributes it to Noah's blessing.

The second possibility is that the phoenix's longevity was earned in two stages. It lives a long time, and does not die a natural death like other animals, because it did not eat from the tree of knowledge. Then Noah's blessing added to its immortality, either by giving it the process of rejuvenation by burning up and being reborn, or by giving it Divine protection from hunters and accidents.

Many commentaries, however, take all the biblical and midrashic discussions of the phoenix to be metaphorical. The Book of Job, for example, used the bird as a metaphor for long life, and did not refer to actually seeing one. Both the above stories from the midrash can be understood this way, as lessons about the importance of caring for other people's difficulties (the midrash of Noah) and about doing the right thing in the face of a temptation (the midrash of Eve). Each, according to the midrash, merits a lot of Divine reward, metaphorically earning long life or immortality.

Other commentaries say that the phoenix is used by our sages as a metaphor for "the soaring of the intellect, which continues even when man's body becomes weak." Others see the phoenix as a metaphor for the Jewish people throughout history, often appearing "burnt up" but always being reborn.

All in all, the magical phoenix has left us a lot to think about. Anyone intrigued by the existence of magical animals has no shortage of Torah sources for them. And anyone looking for metaphors for a soaring intellect or the everlasting Jewish people need look no further.
But, most important, we see two things that we can think about in our own lives, doing what is right when we're given a temptation not to (as in the story of Eve) and caring that others not work too hard for our own sake (the story of Noah). According to the midrash, these are how immortality is earned, either real or metaphorical. Even without spells or incantations, our own behavior can be as hot as a phoenix.

Interested in more about magical creatures in Torah? Harry Potter and Torah discusses talking snakes, owl post, and more! I also recommend Rabbi Slifkin's new book Sacred Monsters.

Material for Jewish teachers based on Harry Potter

2007-10-01T17:21:00.000-05:00

I just came across some material for Jewish teachers based on Harry Potter that I thought readers (especially teachers and parents) here might enjoy:

http://www.babaganewz.com/teachers/index_main.cfm?cat=10&sub=1809lesson

Kudos to Babaganewz for integrating enjoyability and innovation into what look like serious educational materials!

The Lulav chooses the Jew...

2007-09-30T17:46:00.000-05:00

A quick note some of you might enjoy:

In shul on the first day of Sukkot, when everyone had the lulav and etrog that they'd found and chosen from the several nearby lulav markets ("shuks"), a neighbor turned to me and said "it's really the Lulav that chooses the Jew, you know...."

Sukkot: Celebrating magically protected dwellings

2007-09-25T16:46:00.000-05:00

Sukkot: Celebrating magically protected dwellings

We read a lot in the Harry Potter series about magically protected houses and other places. Hogwarts is magically protected against unwanted entry or other harm to the students inside. The Order headquarters is protected against even being seen. The Quidditch Cup stadium magically causes muggles coming nearby to remember other things they have to do. And so on, for many houses and other places throughout the series.

The Torah tells us that G-d gave the Jewish people magically (Divinely) protected houses as well, during our 40 journey through the desert from Egypt to the Holy Land of Israel.

Wednesday night begins the holiday of Sukkot (aka Sukkos) which remembers the "Sukkah" booths (huts) that the Jewish people lived in for these 40 years in the desert. To celebrate Sukkot, Jews traditionally build Sukkos in their yards or porches, and spend a week eating in them and generally living in them as much as possible. As the Torah says, "You should sit in Sukkos for seven days... Because I (G-d) caused you to live in Sukkos...."

On the surface, leaving our houses to spend time in a Sukkah is a simple memorial act. We're remembering the Sukkos that the Jews lived in. And we show our dedication by being willing to leave comfortable air-conditioned and heated houses to eat in our Sukkos.

But if we look more closely at Sukkot, we'll see that what we're in fact celebrating isn't just life in a flimsier dwelling, but rather the Divine magical protection that we received during that time.

The Vilna Gaon asked a simple but profound question about the holiday of Sukkot: Why are we celebrating it now? The Jews started living in Sukkos immediately after the Exodous from Egypt, so we should really celebrate a holiday remembering the Sukkos right after Passover.

He answered this question by detailing the sequence of events after the exodous from Egypt. The Jews left Egypt at Passover time, and immediately started living in Sukkos, and received G-d's Divine protection from the Egyptians (and the elements) in the form of the "clouds of glory." 49 days later was the giving of the Torah, followed unfortunately by the sin of the golden calf. Among the consequences of the sin of the golden calf was that the clouds of glory left, leaving the Jews ezposed to dangers of the desert. The Jews repented, Moses prayed for G-d to forgive them, and on Yom Kippur G-d proclaimed that He forgave the sin. A few days later, the clouds of glory, representing G-d's protection, returned.

So we see something interesting here. Sukkot isn't just remembering the Sukkos. This we would do in the spring right after Passover. Rather, Sukkos is remembering G-d giving us back His Divine magical protection on our dwellings. To celebrate this, we brave the elements a bit, trusting G-d to keep us comfortable.

Our Sukkah boothes, then, are a lot more like the magically-protected houses in Harry Potter's world than we might have thought. Sukkos, like Harry, Ron and Hermione's tent, rely on the Supernatural to protect them.

And on the holiday of Sukkot we're remembering magic at its finest, the magical protection we received from G-d for 40 years.

Of course, our Sukkos don't always feel so magically protected. Wind comes in, rain drips, and the sun beats down. But if we work on our simple faith and reliance on G-d, maybe we can feel some of G-d's protection, in the Sukkah and in our daily lives.

Happy Sukkot everyone!

Final thoughts about Harry Potter and the power of teshuva

2007-09-25T16:28:00.000-05:00

As we leave the time period of Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur, I want to respond to a few comments left by readers to my previous messages.

(If you didn't read the previous messages, check here, here, here, and here for posts on repentance, and here for another Yom Kippur thought.)

One reader pointed out someone I left out of my list of people in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that repented: Grindelwald. I think it's hard to tell from the book how much he repented, but certainly he seems to have left evil to some extent, so I agree, he should be on the list.

Another reader pointed out that Rashi's Talmud commentary (on AZ 17a) says explicitly what Hermione says about repentance: that sometimes it can be so painful it can kill the repenter. This is a great source, and I'll come back to it in another message sometime.

Another commenter pointed out that I may have been too hard on Harry. Harry does indeed improve himself, learn to control his temper, and admit mistakes. He turned around his opinion of Snape, and apologized for his temper in Order of the Phoenix.

Lastly, one commenter wrote that I should have included Pettigrew on my list of repenters. Maybe, but I think of Pettigrew's actions in the basement in Deathly Hallows as paying back a magical debt to Harry, not as any choice on his part. But actions do count, I suppose...

That's it fro the season of repentance, now on to the holiday of Sukkot...

Harry's good heart: Not just light, but happiness

2007-09-21T04:58:00.000-05:00

Yom Kippur: Take Harry Potter's advice and feel some remorse!

2007-09-18T16:50:00.000-05:00

WARNING: This message discusses details of the ending of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

We can learn the key lesson of Yom Kippur from something Harry Potter tells the evil Voldemort in the final battle at the end of Deathly Hallows:

"Before you try to kill me, I'd advise you to think about what you've done ... think, and try for some remorse ..."

"What is this?" [Voldemort replied.]

Of all the things that Harry had said to him, beyond any revelation or taunt, nothing had shocked Voldemort like this. Harry saw his pupils contract to thin slits, saw the skin around his eyes whiten.

"It's your one last chance," said Harry, "it's all you've got left ... I've seen what you'll be otherwise ... be a man ... try ... try for some remorse..."

Harry's point, which Voldemort may have understood at some level, is that remorse was the only way that Voldemort could save his soul, which had been damaged by all the dark magic and evil that he had done. He learned this lesson from Hermione in chapter six, when the three of them are learning about destroying Horcruxes:

"And the more I've read about them," said Hermione, "the more horrible they seem ... It warns in this book how unstable you make the rest of your soul...."

Harry remembered what Dumbeldore had said, about Voldemort moving beyond "usual evil."

"Isn't there any way of putting yourself back together?" Ron asked.

"Yes," said Hermione, with a hollow smile, "but it would be excruciatingly painful."

"Why? How do you do it?" asked Harry.

"Remorse," said Hermione. "You've got to really feel what you've done. There's a footnote. Apparently the pain of it can destroy you. I can't see Voldemort attempting it...."

This, in a nutshell, is the lesson and purpose of Yom Kippur. The day is designed for us to feel remorse, and by doing so we have the power to repair our souls, to clean them back to their pure state.

We start with Kol Nidre, where we express remorse for any vows or promises we may have made, intentionally or not, during the year. We continue with repeated renditions of the vidui prayer, hitting our chests while confessing all the types of bad things we may possibly have done. We recite "Avinu Malkeinu," our Father our King, "we have sinned before you." And we pray for G-d to accept our remorse and wipe the slates clean, giving us a fresh start for the new year.

The midrash I've quoted previously states that if we truly feel remorse during the time from Rosh HaShana to Yom Kippur, G-d will judge us as brand new creations, with clean slates.

Jewish Law also tells us that our remorse should start with things that we may have done to other people. With that in mind, I'd like to ask that anyone reading this, people I know or don't know, who I've bothered or offended in any way whatsoever, please forgive me. And I'll say publically that I forgive anyone who's done anything at all to me.

As Hermione said, true remorse can be painful. We don't want to admit things we've done, we're conditioned to make excuses for them. But on Yom Kippur, remorse is the theme of the day. And at the end of the day, the slates are wiped clean, and all mistakes are erased as if they never existed. As painful as remorse can be, the goal is a positive one -- the chance to start again, to start the new year as pure as newly created, with no baggage, only opportunity.

As Harry said, this is the chance we have for our souls. Let's use it!

I hope everyone has a meaningful Yom Kippur and as easy a fast as can be meaningful.

Blowing the shofar and Jewish unity

2007-09-11T07:56:00.000-05:00

Below is an excerpt from Harry Potter and Torah on the subject of blowing the shofar and Jewish unity. Part of the chapter on unity appeared on the aish.com website, but the part about the shofar was not included, so I'm posting it here now.

Other Rosh HaShana thoughts related to Harry Potter are here, here, and here.

Shana tova everyone!

Harry Potter, blowing the shofar, and Jewish unity

At the end of the Goblet of Fire, Professor delivers some well-chosen words about the need for unity among students and all "wizardfolk" who oppose the evil wizard Voldemort:

"Every guest in this hall ... will be welcomed back here, at any time, should they wish to come. I say to you all, once again -- in light of Voldemort's return, we are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.

"Voldemort's gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great. We can
only fight it by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust.
Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical
and our hearts are open." (Goblets of Fire, chapter 37)

The next year, the sorting hat, the magical talking hat whose job it is to divide the students into the four schoolhouses, infuses the same theme into its start-of-year song:

"...And now the sorting hat is here
And you all know the score:
I sort you into houses
Because that's what I'm for.
But this year I'll go further,
Listen closely to my song:
Though condemned I am to split you
Still I worry that it's wrong....
Oh, know the peril, read the signs,
The warning history shows.
For our Hogwarts is in danger
From external deadly foes.
And we must unite inside her
Or we'll crumble from within.
I have told you, I have warned you...
Let the Sorting now begin."
(Order of the Phoenix, chapter 11)

"… an equally strong bond of friendship and trust. Differences of habit and
language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open."

Shana Tova!

Rosh HaShana: Even Malfoy's or Wormtail's repentance counts!

2007-09-08T14:25:00.000-05:00

Following up on my long message about teshuva (repentance) in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and my follow-up message and many comments, I think it's critical to approach Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur with the following thought in mind:

All teshuva is good teshuva

In my previous messages I discussed Jewish writings about the steps necessary in full teshuva, and how many characters in Deathly Hallows seem to have repented very seriously, and others seem to have repented fairly light-heartedly. While some comment-writers disagreed with me, my conclusion is that the Malfoy's turning away from following Voldemort, and Pettigrew's not killing Harry when ordered to, were both fairly weak forms of repentance, since they were not motivated by a realization that their actions had been wrong, but rather by self-interest or debt.

However, as Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur approach, we need to keep in mind that all repentance is good repentance.

There's an interesting statement in the Talmud (Kiddushin 49a) about this. What happens, the Talmud asks, if someone says that a deal will be made if, and only if, he himself is completely righteous? The Talmud answers that the deal is made, even if the person is known to be less than righteous, because "he may have thought about teshuva when making the deal."

All the commentaries are shocked by this Talmudic statement. How can someone known to do wrong things be considered legally to be "completely righteous" just on the basis of a fleeting thought about teshuva? He didn't do any of the steps of teshuva that I outlined previously! He may return to his evil ways immediately after making the deal! But bottom line, a simple thought of teshuva is enough to make someone righteous, at least for a moment, and that's enough that the deal is made.

The lesson for us as Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur approach is clear. The Day of Judgement and the Day of Atonement don't require huge impossible acts of repentance. We can start with simple thoughts about things we'd like to do differently in the upcoming year, and simple thoughts admitting that things in the past year could have been better. That's enough for G-d to consider us completely righteous.

We don't need to turn around our lives like Percy did, or spend our entire lives repenting like Snape did, or sacrifice our lives like Regulus did. Even the simple changes like the Malfoys did is enough for atonement.

With even a simple thought of teshuva, we can achieve the magical effect that I quoted in Harry Potter and Torah: G-d promises us that if we repent on Rosh HaShana, He will credit us on Yom Kippur as if we were new people (Yerushalmi Rosh HaShana 4:8, Baal HaTurim on Num 29:2).

I want to wish everyone a Happy Rosh HaShana, a sweet new year, a magical year and a Jewishly-meaningful year. May we all be signed and sealed in the Book of Life.

Please pray for a heathy recovery for...

2007-09-06T13:23:00.000-05:00

Please, anyone who can, add a prayer in synagogue this Shabbat for Tzivya bat Beila, a friend just diagnosed with cancer. Thanks!

Percy's teshuva (repentance) and Yom Kippur

2007-09-03T02:29:00.001-05:00

Following up on my previous message about Teshuva (repentance) in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a commenter wrote that I had left out Percy. Big omission! Percy is one of the most notable examples of teshuva in the book.

(Note, by the way, that I don't mean below to base moral lessons on characters as if they really exist. Yes, the books are fiction. But I believe that J. K. Rowling wrote them with a keen eye for human psychology, and that we can use the characters to explore moral lessons based on the way that G-d has built human psychology.)

In the Yom Kippur vidui (confession) service, we repeatedly refer to mistakes that we made because of "Timhon Levav," confusion of the heart, and "kashyut oref," usually translated as stubbornness. The idea in these two confessions, I think, is that people have a tendency to become very invested in what we think is true, basing our actions on huge sets of facts that follow, or that we think follow, from a small set of beliefs. Since our actions are based on our entire belief systems, it's very hard to admit that we've made a mistake, since it would require us to reexamine everything we believe.

But this is the lesson of Percy. Even after years of sticking with our belief systems, believing that we're right, we still have the power to reexamine our belief systems to find things that we want to change.

In the final few Harry Potter books, Percy stuck to his beliefs, since they were all predicated on a view of the world that he was convinced was right. But once he was really pushed to think about it, for his own internal reasons and not because of outside pressure, the house of cards that he was believing in fell to the ground. In the end, he not only changed sides in the fight against Voldemort, but changed all those aspects of his life that were built on that house of cards.

It's also important to note, by the way, that Percy couldn't make this change when pushed by others. He had to realize it himself and make the changes to his beliefs from within. This is because the house of cards of beliefs could answer the claims that others were making. He could only realize the mistakes when he was forced in his own mind to think about the underpinnings of his beliefs. I think that this is worth thinking about for all parents, teachers, and others who try to help others improve -- core changes often need to come from within.

Ultimately, I think that the type of teshuva exemplified by Percy is what we're meant to do during the month leading up to Rosh HaShana, and during the time period between Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur. As I quoted in the Harry Potter and Torah chapter on Destiny and Decisions, the midrash tells us that if we repent properly during the time between Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur, G-d will credit us on Yom Kippur as if we were entirely new people.

NOTE that I posted a follow-up message, with more elaboration, here:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/09/rosh-hashana-even-malfoys-or-wormtails.html

Harry Potter and the Power of Teshuva (repentance)

2007-08-30T11:00:00.001-05:00

Harry Potter and the Power of Teshuva (Repentence)

It seems very appropriate during the month and a half right before Rosh HaShana for everyone to be reading and talking about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, because the theme of Teshuva, repentence, runs throughout the book and throughout all the characters that we all love reading about.

What is Teshuva? Translated as repentence, teshuva in a nutshell is the mitzvah (commandment) to examine and improve our lives, to identify things that we have done wrong, or which we could do better, and commit ourselves to improvement in the future.

Note that Judaism sees teshuvah as something incumbant on everyone, not just "sinners." The ability to identify things that can be done better is a sign of righteousness, not sinfulness, since everyone has areas in which they can improve. We'l return to this point at the end.

Jewish philosophy teaches that teshuva, when carried out completely, can achieve not only forgiveness from G-d, but complete clensing of the person's soul as if the mistakes were never made, and even transform the mistakes into mitzvas for which the person is credited!

Consider all the teshuva that we see in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:

1. Snape doing teshuva for his actions that led to Harry's mother's death
2. Dumbeldore doing teshuva for his childhood mistake that led to his sister's death and Grindewald's rise to power
3. Ron doing teshuva after losing his temper and running away
4. The Malfoy family all doing teshuva for their involvement as death eaters
5. Lupin doing teshuva for running away from his family
6. Regulus Black doing teshuva for being a death eater
7. Dudley Dursley and Petunia, in the early scene before they leave Harry

On the other hand, when Harry offers Voldemort the chance to do teshuva, to at least feel some remorse for what he's done, Voldemort is unable to do so. He does seem, however, to sense the magical power in Harry's question.

Indeed, Hermione comments earlier that remorse has the magical power to repair a soul that's been damaged by creating Horcruxes. But she reads that this remorse is so painful that few wizards who have created Horcruxes are able to do it.

So what does Judaism say about the repentance that we see in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows?

The most famous codification of the process of teshuva is that of Rambam, who identified three steps that must be carried out in order for full atonement to be achieved (Hilchos Teshuva chapter 2):

1. Remorse for the mistakes that were made
2. Commitment to never again making the same mistakes
3. Confessing the mistake orally, in the form of a vidui prayer (as recited on Yom Kippur)

Others specify a final requirement, which is not necessarily part of the process of teshuva itself, but which is necessary in order to be sure that the person’s repentance is complete:

4. Having an opportunity to make the same mistake again, and not making it

I’m sure that everyone will have their own opinions about which Deathly Hallows characters did proper repentance according to Judaism. But it seems to me that Snape’s repentance was the most complete, since he spent years of his life in a situation where Voldemort and others wanted information from him, and he gave them only certain information and not all. Dumbeldore says this explicitly in one of the remembered scenes at the end of Deathly Hallows. This indicates that Snape not only carried out the process of remorse, commitment to proper behavior, and confessing orally, all of which we see in his memories, but he also was in the same situation again and did not make the mistake again. This would make his repentance the most complete. (Note that I’m not a big Snape fan, and do not think that his lifelong love for Lilly was in fact true love, but that’s the subject of another message.)

Dumbeldore’s repentance also seems fairly complete, although it’s not clear that he ever spoke of his mistake. Ron’s repentance when he returns to Harry and Hermione also seems pretty complete, as does Lupin’s when he returns to Tonks, although these are obviously smaller repentance than the others.

The Malfoy’s repentance, however helpful it was to Harry, seems to be lacking. On the one hand, they indeed seem to have been sorry for their actions, and Narcissa in particular has the opportunity to have Harry killed and did not do so. But it’s not clear, however, that they really thought that their actions were wrong. Rather, their change in life was motivated by wanting to save Draco’s life. This does not seem to me to be true remorse.

Regulus Black’s repentance, lastly, appears to me to also be complete. It’s not clear what made him have a change of heart, and whether he felt true remorse or had other motivations, but everything that we do know indicates that he carried out all the steps of repentance, and then not only refrained from death eater activity but tried to undo the damage he had done, as well as prevent future evil.

The Dursley’s repentance also seems to be fairly complete, although brief. It’s interesting that this isn’t developed at all later in the book, but it seems that both Petunia and Dudley are truly remorseful as the truth of Harry’s life becomes clear to them.

Which brings me to the one person that isn’t on our list: Harry Potter himself.

What teshuva has Harry done over the course of the series?

It seems to me that the stories are written such that Harry Potter himself is pure throughout the books. While this is probably an important and good thing within JK Rowling’s religious views, I don’t think that this is a Jewish ideal. Jews need to grow, morally and spiritually and in their actions, and its not realistic or even ideal for anyone to stay the same.

Even the Jewish savior, the Moshiach, needs to grow. This is discussed in the Harry Potter and Torah chapter titled Mudbloods, Moabites, and Moshiach.

In summary, I think that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is full of examples of teshuva. We can learn from these examples all of the elements of Jewish teshuva, and think about this in our preparations for Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur.

And I think we can all keep in mind that the Jewish ideal is not life-long purity, but rather growth and achieving purity through effort and self-growth. To reach our Jewish ideal, we don’t need scars and we don’t need to have pure motives throughout our lives, we rather need the growth and self-improvement that we call teshuva.

Agree? Disagree? Comments are welcome, either through the blog comment link below or by e-mail to author@harrypottertorah.com

NOTE that I posted a follow-up message, with more on the idea here:

http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2007/09/percys-teshuva-repentance-and-yom.html

The Divine Hallows

2007-08-16T16:45:00.000-05:00

The Divine Hallows

There were once three brothers who were travelling along a lonely, winding road at twilight... when they found their path blocked by a hooded figure... And Death spoke to them... and said that each had earned a prize for having been clever enough to evade him....

The oldest brother, who was a combatative man, asked for a wand more powerful than any in existence: a wand that must always win duels for is owner... So Death crossed to an elder tree on the banks of the river, fashioned a wand from a branch that hung there, and gave it to the oldest brother.

Then the second brother, who was an arrogant man, decided that he wanted to humiliate Death still further, and asked for the power to recall others from death. So Death picked up a stone from the riverbank and gave it to the second brother, and told him that the stone would have the power to bring back the dead...

The youngest brother was the humblest and also the wisest of the brothers... so he asked for something that would enable him to go forth... without being followed by Death. So Death, most unwillingly, handed over his own Cloak of invisibility."

Tree of Life Judaica in Seattle now selling Harry Potter and Torah

2007-08-15T11:41:00.000-05:00

A new featured store selling Harry Potter and Torah is Tree of Life Judaica and Books in Seattle, WA:

Seattle Address: 2201 NE 65th Street * Phone: 206-527-1130
Bellevue Address: 137 106th Ave NE * Phone: 425-646-6466
Toll-Free: 1-866-282-6657

The book is also still for sale at Judaica House in Teaneck, NJ, and through their Web site, and at several stores in Israel. Ask for it at a store near you, and tell them they can e-mail the author at author@harrypottertorah.com for more info.

Should Harry Potter have fought Voldemort with a disarming curse or a killing curse?

2007-08-05T16:51:00.000-05:00

Below is another Jewish perspective on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in the spirit of the book Harry Potter and Torah.

WARNING: This message contains spoilers about the ending of Deathly Hallows.

From the first chase scene at the beginning of Deathly Hallows, to the final fight between Harry and Voldemort, the book discusses Harry's use of Expelliarmus, the disarming curse that causes a wizard's magic wand to fly from his hand, instead of more damaging curses. Harry does this in the final scene of Goblet of Fire, and again in the broomstick chase scene at the beginning of Deathly Hallows, and the characters discuss how fighting to disarm is a unique characteristic of Harry's. In the final clash between Harry and Voldemort, Harry again uses Expelliarmus, while Voldemort uses Avada Kedavra, the killing curse. Voldemort ends up dead, but not directly because of the curse that Harry used.

The implication in Deathly Hallows, I think, is that Harry's use of Expelliarmus is noble, or honorable, and that it keeps Harry pure throughout the conflict. But it raises the following question: Should Harry have fought Voldemort with Expelliarmus or with Avada Kedavra, the killing curse?

Note that my question is focused primarily on the final scene. Certainly in the early chase scene it made sense to only disarm Stan the bus conductor, since he was fighting against his will. But the fight with Voldemort was clearly a fight to the death. Was Harry's Expelliarmus the honorable thing to do?

The start of a Jewish answer is Lev 19:16: "Do not stand idly when your neighbor's blood is spilled." The Torah is stating very clearly that we have an obligation to save the life of another. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 73a) clarifies that this is true when the other person's life is threatened by natural events (such as falling into a river) or by another person. In other words, when other people's lives are threatened by a murderer, we have to do whatever we can do to stop the murderer and save the lives of the victims.

The Torah elaborates on this in Ex 22:1: "If a burglar is found sneaking into a house, and is hit, and dies as a result, the person who hit him is not guilty." The Torah's reasoning is that a burglar who sneaks into someone else's house at night is willing to kill someone who catches him in order to escape. If the homeowner catches such a burglar, attacking the burglar is an act of self-defense.

Jewish Law generalizes these cases to the general case of a "rodef," a person who is chasing after someone with intent or willingness to kill. Whoever sees such a circumstance, where the chaser is clearly going to kill the person they're chasing, the bystander is obligated to stop the rodef, the chaser, using any means necessary. If the bystander can save the victim without killing the rodef, obviously he should do so. But if killing the rodef is the only way to save the victim, then killing the rodef is a mitzvah, a commandment and a good deed, because it's the only way to fulfill the Torah's obligation not to stand by idly when your neighbor's blood is spilled.

Based on this analysis, I think that from a Jewish perspective, and indeed from a moral perspective, Harry did not do the right thing when he used Expelliarmus on Voldemort. Voldemort was clearly killing others, and Harry knew that he was the one that had to kill Voldemort. In this circumstance killing Voldemort would become a mitzvah, not only a commandment but a good deed in every sense of the words.

Harry in fact says this in the powerful scene in chapter 23 of Half Blood Prince. Thinking about Voldemort's having killed his parents, and Sirius, and Cedric Diggory, and all the other damage that Voldemort had done, Harry concluded that even without the prophecy: "I'd want him finished... and I'd want to do it." This was a consequence of Harry's honor and love, and not in any way a bad feeling or desire.

I can speculate that J. K. Rowling wrote Harry's use of Expelliarmus based on her own religious beliefs about "turning the other cheek," and about "letting he who is without sin throw the first stone." But the Torah tells us clearly that sometimes it's the moral thing to do to throw the first stone, if this stone will prevent murder.

For Harry, alls wells that ends well. We're all happy that Harry defeated Voldemort, and Harry's use of Expelliarmus doesn't detract from the story. But as we think about the moral message of the books, we should keep in mind that saving lives is a high moral imperitive, as we see in the Torah's law of Rodef.

Comments welcome -- just click on the "comments" link below the message, or e-mail author@harrypottertorah.com. Future messages will discuss other themes from Deathly Hallows. Subscribe by e-mail or check back soon!

Article by Rabbi Slifkin on Jewish magical creatures

2007-08-05T08:53:00.000-05:00

Readers of Harry Potter and Torah will enjoy an article in this week's Jewish Press from Rabbi Natan Slifkin, titled Harry Potter's Fabulous Jewish Monsters.

I also recommend Rabbi Slifkin's books, including Mysterious Creatures, and expect to enjoy his new book as well.

Featured bookstores carrying Harry Potter and Torah

2007-08-03T03:19:00.000-05:00

Jewish bookstores in New Jersey (Teaneck) and in Israel (Beit Shemesh and Ramat Beit Shemesh Alef) have replenished their supplies of Harry Potter and Torah.

The newest bookstore to carry the book is in Seattle, check back soon for details when it's in stock!

If your local store is interested in selling Harry Potter and Torah, they can contact the author at author@harrypottertorah.com for details on a variety of ways they can order it.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Jewish perspective

2007-08-01T20:57:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone. I assume that everyone's had enough time now to finish Deathly Hallows, so I'm going to start writing about my thoughts on the book and some Jewish perspectives on it. Below are some general thoughts about the book, with more specifics to follow in other messages.

Overall I really liked the book. It was definitely the most fun since the early ones, in that it didn't waste time, just about every page was action-filled and important for the story.

Most of all, I'm glad that Harry won, and that he won with a sense of personal responsibility for eradicating evil. And I'm glad he did it without turning to others, although he did receive help from others. And I'm glad Dumbeldore was truly dead, not that I wish anyone to be dead, but that Harry won himself.

I admit that I'm somewhat sorry that Snape ended up being a good guy. He was fun to hate. But at least it was done in a way that made some sense, and explained how he'd been acting.

That said, I'm disappointed that his lifelong feelings for Harry's mother were described as "love" rather than "obsession." More on that point in a future message.

From a Jewish perspective, I was somewhat disturbed by the death theme at the end of the book, but not as much so as I might have been. I'd like to break this into two parts: first is the scene with Harry's dying and them coming back to life, and second is the idea that he had to die to save everyone else.

The whole scene of his dying and then coming back to life was, unfortunately I believe, a strong sign of the author's xian religious background. She threw in the line at the end about how the whole thing happened inside Harry's head, but nonetheless, the scene seemed a lot like xian death and ressurection. And it added nothing to the story, other than a bit of explanation from Dumbeldore and the sight of the "child under the seat" (more on this later). It's surprising to see such a xian scene when the rest of the books have been completely free of any religious mention, but on the other hand, it's not surprising that the author's religious background should creep in somehow.

But all that said, it didn't really change the book for me. It's one scene, and can be largely ignored without effecting the story.

Second, though, is that the book built up the theme of Harry dying as a means of giving protection to others. Throughout the series there was a theme of Harry's having received magical protection from his mother's having died trying to save his life. This was always characterized in terms of her love, not as "dying for sins" or anything like that. There a book chapter in Harry Potter and Torah that gives a Jewish perspective on magical protection from self-sacrifice, in the blog here and in book form here.

I'd like to read Deathly Hallows as continuing the same theme. Harry's being willing to sacrifice himself out of love for his friends and out of committment to fighting evil led to everyone else's receiving magical protection at the end of the fight with Voldemort. I think that the story works perfectly well that way.

Combining the two, we have a final few scenes that could be read in a non-xian way, but could also be read in a very xian way. I encourage everyone to read my Jewish perspective on magical protection, and enjoy Deathly Hallows in that light.

There's lots more to say, but I'm going to write other messages over the next week or so on specific points in the book, my thoughts on them, and Jewish perspectives on them.

Comments welcome, either as blog comments or as email to author@harrypottertorah.com

Hope everyone's enjoying Deathly Hallows!

2007-07-23T03:28:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone's enjoying Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! I'm still reading, and I'm not going to post anything here about it until next week, to give time for everyone reading this to finish the book.

The predictions I made before the book came out, based on Harry Potter and Torah, are here, here, and here. Next week I'll go through them and discuss how accurate they were.

Comments welcome! E-mail author@harrypottertorah.com

CNN News coverage of Harry Potter and Torah

2007-07-20T05:55:00.000-05:00

A CNN International Business news piece on the Harry Potter market includes several short comments by me, your Harry Potter and Torah author. You can see it on-line here:

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/business/2007/07/20/boulden.uk.harry.potter.book.business.cnn

or see it on CNN TV yourself, in the international business news.

Washington Jewish Week excerpt now on-line

2007-07-19T00:08:00.000-05:00

The excerpt from Harry Potter and Torah that appeared in this past week's Washington Jewish Week is now available on-line here:

http://www.washingtonjewishweek.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=7394&SectionID=31&SubSectionID=30&S=1

Enjoy!

Harry Potter and Torah

New book: Morality for Muggles

The Talmud and the space shuttle's view from space

A personal thought about the reported Gilad Shalit deal

Harry Potter, Shofar and Jewish Unity

Approach the High Holidays the Harry Potter way

Clarification of Harry Potter cookbook - and a recommendation

Harry Potter cookbook - Kosher!

REPOST: The Divine Hallows (in preparation for the Deathly Hallows movie)

The upcoming Deathly Hallows movie and the Torah's view of dealing with dilemmas (Chayei Sarah)

Harry Potter themes in this week's Torah portion (Vayera)

Mudbloods, Moabites, and Moshiach:http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2008/11/vayeira-mudbloods-moabites-and-moshiach.html

Shalshelet: Dealing with temptation and uncertainty:http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2008/11/shalshelet-dealing-with-temptation-and.html

The fight against evil (a NY Times letter to the Editor)

Letters

The Israeli Commandos and the Flotilla

Published: June 1, 2010

The magical powers of Shavuot

Rebooting our devices and ourselves

REPOST: Joseph, Egypt, and Magical Protection (VaYechi)

Book fair of authors living in Beit Shemesh - including Harry Potter and Torah

Magic and Knowledge - excerpt from a friend's speech

Amazon's huge discount on Harry Potter and Torah

From ParshaBlog: Did Chava Speak Parseltongue?

REPOST: Harry's Good Heart and Yom Kippur

Harry's good heart: Not just light, but happiness

Kids and self-control

Dumbeldore's repentance (teshuva) - a sign of a leader, or unbecoming of a leader?

Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur are coming soon...

Harry Potter thought on Hirhurim blog - choosing beliefs

Congratulations to Neal Hendel new Israeli surpreme court justice

Aish article on Harry Potter and Free Will

Jewish Horcruxes (from a Rabbi in Connecticut)

Making Tisha B'Av mean something

New book: Jewish Themes in Star Trek (not by me)

Harry Potter ideas for the Passover Seder

Sirius, Kreacher, and the Origins of Haman

Purim: Magical book, the power of attribution, and rebounding curses

A book by Rabbi Noah Weinberg ZTzL

Harry's mission, Yitro's hearing, and the life of Rabbi Noah Weinberg OBM

Facing the truth -- what would you do?

Harry Potter and Torah book on sale at Amazon

Good article in Wall St Journal

Israel finally defends its citizens

Shalshelet: Dealing with temptation and uncertainty

Donated 10% of book proceeds

Tales of Beedle the Bard coming out soon!

VaYeira: Mudbloods, Moabites, and Moshiach

REPOST: Fawkes the Phoenix in Noah's Ark

Harry Potter thoughts related to the story of creation

Starting the new Torah cycle

Laws of a Sukkah according to Dr. Seuss

Harry Potter thoughts in preparation for the High Holidays

Harry Potter ideas related to the story of the Spies (Shlach)

Harry Potter and Torah reader feedback

Ever-lasting fire

Pesach Sheni and second chances

Voldemort, Palestinian terrorists, and the fight against evil

Chassidic Raggae and rebounding curses

More on Passover and Unity

Passover salvation and Voldemort's rebounding curses

Discussion of Harry Potter and Torah on Israeli radio

On the radio...

Another look at Harry Potter and Passover

Afikomen present for Harry Potter fans

Site for mobile blog browsing: mippin.com

Harry Potter and Purim

Back in stock in Ramat Beit Shemesh

Love, relationships and souls

For Hebrew speakers: הארי פוטר והתורה

NYC's J Levine Judaica now selling Harry Potter and Torah

Magical snow

Harry Potter and Torah reader comments

Snape's love for Lily: True love?

Repost: Why did Harry Potter's "boggart" effect him like a "dementor?" (Parshat Beshalach)

Harry Potter and Torah back in stock in Israel

The physics of flying carpets

Starting Exodus (Sh'mot) the Harry Potter way

Harry Potter and Torah ideas about the story of Joseph

Harry Potter, Joseph, and the power of love

Mudbloods, Moabites, and Moshiach:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2008/11/vayeira-mudbloods-moabites-and-moshiach.html

Shalshelet: Dealing with temptation and uncertainty:
http://harrypottertorah.blogspot.com/2008/11/shalshelet-dealing-with-temptation-and.html