Presence

Judaism and Harry Potter

R. Natan Slifkin's article in the Jewish Press, entitled Harry Potter's Fabulous Jewish Monsters examines the biblical, talmudic and midrashic sources for some of the creatures found in the Harry Potter novels.

Apart from Anthony Goldstein (a Ravenclaw, quite appropriately), one has to look carefully to find Judaism at Hogwarts. While much has been written on this subject, most is at the superficial level, using examples from the stories as starting points for discussions of quaint, and often jejune, simplistic Jewish moralisms.

The fundamental question to address is the main theme of the Potter books: that Love is the only force capable of withstanding the Will to Power. Despite the fact that the novels are not evangelical in nature, they are Christian in this respect. Judaism, on the other hand, would posit that Law would be the ideal vehicle through which not only the individual, but also the community, triumphs over the Power of Evil. Rowling is characteristically critical of governments as incapable of effectively combating true Evil. There is an interesting dichotomy between the personal and the communal, which, from my limited understanding, also seems to be a major point of contention between Judaism and Christianity.

Other connections to Judaism include the Philosopher's Stone (Nicholas Flamel's guide in creating the stone was purported to be the Book of Abraham, attributed the patriarch), and the obvious parallels between Nazi Germany and Voldemort's reign of terror.

The Deathly Hallows

I'm sure you've heard the news about the title for the seventh Harry Potter book's title, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Penny and I have been covering it quite extensively over on Harry Potter Prognostications, so if you're interested, please do check it out.

In my latest post, entitled: How Harry Potter Will End - The Deathly Hallows, I explain how I think the story will end, based on ideas gleaned from the title of Book 7. The religious significance of the theory I'm proposing is fairly obvious, and should not be understated.

HPProgs is Back, Baby!

HPProgs is back, this time as a podcast. Tell your friends, link it up, alert the media, whatever. If you're into Harry Potter, then check it out.

Kosher Magic

Menachem Kellner (with the help of his daughter, Rivka Kellner) has gone and combined two of my favorite topics: Rambam and Harry Potter. At a recent conference they presented a paper entitled, "The Magic of Science and the Science of Magic: Harry Potter and Maimonides." In the paper, the Kellners discuss whether the magic used at Hogwarts is of a scientific or supernatural nature; the upshoot being that Rambam would acknowledge the possibility of the former, and disapprove of the later.

"Nothing in Harry Potter's world is based on anything that is in principle impossible to know," according to the Kellners. "The magic of that world is not supernatural. It is based on aspects of the natural universe of which we humans are simply unaware. There are no occult properties or forces beyond investigation. In principle, there is an explanation for everything, even if Albus Dumbledore [headmaster of the Hogwarts School] himself doesn't always know what it is."

I agree, to some extent, but to characterize the magic of Hogwarts as purely scientific is incorrect. There is no question that JK Rowling's magic is scientific in nature, and does not dabble in the occult or pagan (and pshaw to anyone who says that it does). It manifests itself as a technology, which can be studied and learned to some extent by any individual. But unlike our science and technology, there is an additional aspect to this magic that is not present in our technology. Modern science allows even the most numbskulled of persons to wield unimaginable power, without regard to any personal virtue. The Magic of Potter, on the other hand, is highly correlated to the individual's level of self-awareness and social conciousness. Although the basics of magic can be learned by just about anyone, just as you or I can surf the web or drive a car, the higher levels of magic require expression in one's soul before they can be accessed.

The perfect example: Harry is unable to cast an "avada k'dabra" curse, because he lacks sufficient hatred. In contrast, our science has enabled us to take another's life from a distance, with a bomb or a missle, without manifesting the requisite hatred in our souls; killing someone in cold blood, on the other hand, does. Rowling's magic is scientific, but not mechanical; it is pshchological.

For more, see this post on Harry Potter Prognostications.

If by chance anyone reading this has access to the Kellner's paper, and could arrange an owl to deliver it to me, I would be much obliged.

[via KesherTalk; hat tip SoccerDad]

Tempus fugit

My good friend Dan pointed out the apparent paradox in the Time Turner sequence at the end of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; namely that if Harry hadn't been saved from the Dementors, he would have died, in which case, there would have been no future Harry to go back and save Harry in the first place. This is a version of what is commonly referred to as a predestination paradox. A classic example (supposing time travel possible): I decide to murder my direct ancestor, in an effort to prevent my own birth (or to start a chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the space time continuum, and destroy the entire universe! Granted, that's a worse case scenario. The destruction might in fact be very localized, limited to our own galaxy. Yes, quite a relief). The potential of this paradox has led some to speculate that time travel is in fact impossible, or so I've been told. The Harry Potter case is basically the opposite, but essentially the same (we will not deal here with the ingenius use of time travel employed by Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted "Theodore" Logan to obtain the keys; suffice it to say, that might be the single most briliant application of time travel, ever).

I recently came across an article from BBC News detailing a new model for time travel that avoids the problems created by a predestination paradox, and is somewhat reminiscent of Schrödinger's cat. Basically, at the point in time at which an individual leaves his timeline, wherever he ends up, he will be unable to alter anything that was known to be true at the time at which he left. As an example, let's say I want to travel back in time and kill my grandfather, so as to prevent myself from ever having existed. If at the time that I step into my time machine, I know my grandfather is alive, then there is no way that I can possibly kill him, since the probability of him being alive when I left was 1. It would follow that a person would never be able to prevent himself from being born, since the probability of their being alive later on is also 1. Try as I might, I will be unable to change the past, since I know it not to have come true. If, however, at the time of travel an individual's status is unknown to me, it is possible that, once in the past, it turns out I was the one who killed them.

What I find interesting about this approach is that it basically says you can't alter the past, you can only learn more about it. Whatever has happened must happen, and you might just find, you had a hand in it. Marty McFly would have had nothing to worry about back in 1955 according to this theory, since try as he might, his existence acted as knowledge that his parents ended up together (the theory, however, would still permit us the fun in seeing how Marty played a role in his own creation). Accordingly, anyone of us could have shot JFK. The other interesting idea that is suggested by this theory is that time is not linear, but is happening "all at once." Our perception of it is linear, for whatever reason, but the model presents things as happening "all at once" (I would venture to say that it would be impossible to accurately describe this model; its probably beyond the reaches of our language).

With this in mind, let's reconsider the Harry Potter scenario. One minute Harry is lying on the ground, overwhelmed by the Dementors; the next, he is in the Hospital wing, about to go back through time in an attempt to set things right. We don't know how Harry was saved from the Dementors, Harry doesn't even know; he just knows that somehow, he lived. As such, at the moment before Harry heads into the past, the probability of his being alive is 1. Fast forward back to the scene by the lake; Harry #1 lays dying on the banks, while Harry #2 waits expectantly for his past savior to (re)appear. Only then does Harry realize that he was the one who saved himself originally, and so he does it (again?). Nothing has changed, only that Harry #2 is able to complete his knowledge of the events of the past, and in doing so, stepped in and played a part.

A wise man once said, "Time flies like the wind. Fruit flies like bananas." So true.

Yeah!

Update: According to Amazon's package tracking system, my Harry Potter shipment is sitting in a box in Sparks, MD waiting for delivery.

Track your package

Date Time Location Service Area Checkpoint Details
Jul 15, 2005 04:00:00 AM SPARKS MD US Arrival Scan
Jul 14, 2005 09:32:00 PM SPARKS MD US Arrival Scan
Jul 14, 2005 08:32:00 PM LAUREL MD US Departure Scan
Jul 14, 2005 10:33:53 AM LAUREL MD US Arrival Scan
Jul 14, 2005 06:49:00 AM LAUREL MD US Arrival Scan
Jul 13, 2005 08:30:00 PM LEXINGTON KY US Departure Scan
Jul 13, 2005 08:13:38 PM US Carrier notified to pick up package
Jul 13, 2005 08:13:38 PM US Carrier notified to pick up package

All halachic considerations aside, I'll wait till after Shabbos to open the package.

Potter Potter Potter

I showed this to my five year old son and he had nightmares. I guess he's a bit young for Harry Potter trance/techno music. Then again, aren't we all? He might be better of with Badgers.

Half Blood Prince!

Via HPProgs, JKRowling.com has a special holiday surprise for those hearty enough to solve a few riddles (It's an otter, by the way). Let the pre-ordering begin!

Update: Mark your calendars, July 16 (once again, a Saturday; @%&$) is the date. Preorder from Amazon US here.

Prisoner of Azkaban Trailer

[via Maphet via HPANA]

HPANA has a new Prisoner of Azkaban trailer to download.

Looking good! For those interested in the "real" story behind Prisoner of Azkaban, I refer you to this article.

New HPProgs post

I've got a new post up on Harry Potter Prognostications, dealing with truth in history. Two different approaches are presented; I'm not sure which, if either, I believe. I'm probably leaning more towards the subjective view (I generally don't do well with the correspondence theory of truth). But it does raise the question of how Judaism views history. I haven't the time or the inclination to tackle this one right now, but one source that comes to mind is Parshas Shelach (Num 13-16), the story of the spies, wherein the post-Exodus Israel doubts the historical promise of God to Avraham, et. al., that the Land of Israel will be a great place to live. As such, they appoint a group of spies to scope out the land. To make a long story short, big mistake (huge, in fact), and Israel spends the next thirty-eight years meandering in the Sinai Peninsula, waiting for the doubting generation to die off. The Torah's description of the method of reconnoitering employed by the spies relies heavily on the use of the word "li'roat," to see, and various conjugations thereof.

My basic understanding is that the spies used their "sight" to offer up their interpretation of the quality of the Land, taking advantage of the subjective nature of truth in a community setting. Their description became fact for their generation and turned the people away from the historical truth/promise given them. Of course, we end the parsha with the commandment of Tzitzis (fringes on garments), of which the Torah states, "And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it (u'reitem), and remember all the commandments of the LORD, and do them; and that ye go not about ("taturu"; same word as used for spying in the beginning of Num 13, "la'tur") after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go astray," which seems to be telling us not to fall prey to the subjective historical explanations, and to remember the historical imperative of the Exodus.

So it would seem that history is really important to Judaism. Of course, my predilection for the subjective tells you how well I fit in with traditional Judaism. Hopefully I've quite a few years left to sort it all out ;)

Know of any books, essays, etc., that discuss this? Leave 'em in the comments.