Harry Potter themes in the Torah portion of Va'era

The book Harry Potter and Torah discusses a Torah perspective on magic wands, many examples of which appear in this week's Torah portion, Va'era:

Moses's staff is used to perform many of the plagues in Egypt, similar to a magic wand's performing magic. This staff is referred to as "the staff of G-d" which Onkolus's interpretive translation calls "the staff by which G-d worked miracles" (Ex 7:9). Moses also uses his staff to perform magic in front of Pharoah.

In several of the plagues G-d commands Moses or Aaron to raise their hands, but the Torah says that they raised their staffs. Clearly they knew that the staff was an inherent part of their ability to perform the miracle. (See Ibn Ezra on Ex 9:22 and Ha'amek Davar on Ex 9:23.)

We'll see more miracles from Moses's staff in next week's Torah portion, as the plagues continue, and then at the splitting of the sea as the Jews leave Egypt.

For more on magic wands and other Torah perspectives on themes from Harry Potter, see Harry Potter and Torah.

Moses, the Egyptian, and the killing curse - part 1 - Harry Potter and Torah for Parshat Shemot

Moses, the Egyptian, and the killing curse - part 1

Harry Potter and Torah - Parshat Shmot

In my previous blog message, and in the epilogue of Harry Potter and Torah, I mentioned an incident in the Torah (in this week's Torah portion, Shmot) that relates to a theme from Harry Potter, killing curses, that is not elaborated in the book. Today I'm writing the first part of the story.

The Torah tells us that Moses, who had been raised in Pharoah's house but knew that he was Jewish, saw an Egyptian beating a Jewish man (Ex 2:12). When he saw that there was noone coming to help the Jewish man, Moses killed the Egyptian. The next day he saw two Jewish men fighting with each other, and asked one why he was beating up the other. The man responded "Who made you our judge? Are you saying you'll kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" (Ex 2:14)

The Midrash and many commentaries (Rashi, Ramban, Rabbeinu Bechaya) explain the wording of the Jewish man's retort to Moses, "are you saying you'll kill me," to mean literally that Moses might kill him by talking, "saying he'll kill," and had done so to the Egyptian. In the original Hebrew this is clearly a grammatically correct reading of the sentence.

As commentaries elaborate, if the man had said to Moses, "are you planning to kill me," we wouldn't have any reason to think that Moses killed him through speech. But the use of the word "saying" implies killing by speech. Commentaries also elaborate that the man must have seen the Egyptian man drop dead without Moses touching him.

When Jewish commentaries discuss performing magical acts through speech, the words spoken are not incantations or curses, but rather various names of G-d. Even though the Avada Kedavra curse in Harry Potter has its roots in the Hebrew language (as is discussed in Harry Potter and Torah), the Torah's magical incantations are all names of G-d. The magic which is performed, in this case killing the Egyptian without touching him, is not an independent magical act by Moses, but is rather carrying out G-d's plan for the world.

As a side note, the Midrash says that the Egyptian was beating up the Jewish man because he was enamored with the Jewish man's wife, who was named Shlomit. This will be relevent later when we look at other examples of killing curses in the Torah.

So far, we've seen killing curses in the Torah described a lot like those in Harry Potter, causing a person to drop dead on the spot without being touched. But rather than carrying out the decision of a wizard, like Avada Kedavra, the Torah's killing curses are names of G-d, and carry out His decisions for the world.


This idea will be developed more later this week. As always, comments or questions are welcome.

Parshat Sh'mot's many Harry Potter related themes

This week Torah portion starts the book of Sh'mot (Exodous), and transitions from the Patriarchs to the story of the Jews in Egypt and their redemption by G-d via Moshe (Moses).

The parsha of Sh'mot contains a number of references related to Harry Potter themes:

1. We see Moshe performing miraculous acts (a.k.a. magic) with his staff, one of the many Biblical stories of magic wands that are discussed in the chapter on Magic Wands in Harry Potter and Torah.

2. The story of the burning bush is one of the examples of magical protection, discussed in the book chapter by that name, and posted on this blog last week and on the book's Web site as a sample chapter.

3. In the story of Moshe killing the Egyptian man who was beating up the Jewish man, commentaries say that Moshe killed him by saying a magical Name of G-d. In Harry Potter terminology, this is one of the earliest examples of a killing curse in action. This is not discussed at length in the book, and I'll post more about this on the blog later this week. For those interested in looking it up, the citations to start with are Rashi, Ramban, and Rabbeinu Bechaya on Ex 2:12 and 2:14, and Midrash Shmos Raba 1:34.

Have a good week everyone!