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HP is a mashal for Jews: (Not my idea so if you disagree, dont scream at me!!!)
Wizards and Witches=Jews
Muggles=Non jews
Half-blood=people who have intermarried parents and think they are jewish…
Voldemort=Yushka
Death eaters=Christans
Hogwarts= Yeshiva
Magic=Gemara
Capes=Yamulka and Tzitzis
Dumbledor=gadol hador
We are just like wizards/witches, we have our magic (Torah, Hashem) and none of the muggles understand us and think we a crazy creeps!!!!!!
lol interesting
and i am harry potter.
We also do Quiddish every Friday night…
This is actually quite funny!!
todros Gimpel- HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
malfoy- arabs
umbridge- yetzer hora
weasleys- lot’s of kids…..
minstry of magic- beis din
Harry Potter = ??? ???? !
1. The theme of the story has strong Christian overtones, with Harry being the “messianic” character.
2. If you were writing a Jewish equivalent, it would end up being radically different. There’s no one to one equivalence between the Christian/ British concepts and Jewish ones.
3. An important aspect, and probably the one frum kids relate to, is that the wizarding sub-culture is a small sub-culture largely hidden from the mainstream and existing with its own values, while be regarded by the mainstream as being somewhat deviant.
Witches and wizards = observant Jews (praying, studying Torah and doing mitzvos is really magic — it changes the world in a supernatural way).
Muggles = non-Jews and non-observant Jews (they don’t understand the magic of Torah and mitzvos).
The Dursleys = anti-Semites, militant atheists and anti-Orthodox Jews.
Slytherin = those for whom Torah is a deadly poison (Yoma 72b), because their ulterior motive is for power and domination rather than serving Hashem and improving their character traits.
Gryffindor = those who are brave and bold as a lion in doing Hashem’s will, fighting evil and making a kiddush Hashem.
Hufflepuff = those who are kind and humble in doing Hashem’s will, who always do acts of kindness but are not known to take the initiative to spread Judaism or lead people toward teshuvah.
Ravenclaw = those who are righteous Torah scholars but lack the bravery to intervene and push for positive changes in society (such as more unity, etc.)
Dumbledor = the greatest tzaddik of the generation.
Voldemort = an evil leader bringing people away from Yiddishkeit to a wicked secular philosophy like that of Sodom (rampant selfishness and immorality) or Communism.
Harry Potter = potentially the gadol hador or even Moshiach, with the bravery to lead all Jews and potentially all humanity back to true Yiddishkeit.
Hermione = someone who escapes obstacles in her background (being Muggle-born, being a woman) to become a great Torah scholar and a strong positive influence on the potential gadol hador Harry.
Ron = someone who escapes obstacles in his background (poverty, insecurity, dominant older siblings, average intelligence) to play an important role, as a trusted friend and confidant, in the rise of the potential gadol hador Harry.
Hagrid = pious and good-hearted but eccentric and relatively unlearned Jew, who because of his kindness and bravery is greatly valued by the potential gadol hador/moshiach Harry. (Much like the Besht greatly valued pious but unlearned Jews.)
The Ministry of Magic = the rabbanut, the charedi political parties, the rabbinic establishment at the time of the Besht — the would-be leaders who aren’t leading.
Muggle-borns = Ba’alei teshuva or gerim.
I find it odd that people are comparing idolatry and kishuf to, lihavdil, our holy faith.
great ideas! Dumbledore and Harry seem to have a rebbe-talmid type relationship, going on all these adventures and into the memories of the pensive together.
Bump bump bump
And HaLeiVi is like the Malachim who said, Mah Enosh. I don’t get this never ending fascination.
HaKatan, it’s not kishuf cause it bears no resemblance to real witchcraft, and it’s not idolatry since there is no paganism involved. There are no Christian themes in the books either. I actually think the comparison is very good for an audience who needs it
dementors = extremely powerful evil ta’avoh, yeitzer hara
voldemort = quintessential self-hating OTD jew, anti-semite, roshoh who is in a high authoritative and political position
quiddich = moral, ethical and religious challenges and battles one must overcome when entering the ‘gahss'(pitch).
While frum children perceive the story in the ways many of the posters perceive (i.e. we can relate to the idea of being a separate, superior, semi-secret civilization existing in “plain sight” of the dominant culture), the books has many deliberately Christian undercurrents that most frum Jews don’t notice but that we should be aware of (though not necessarily concerned with, since these tend to be Christian literary conventions that aren’t all that offensive from our perspective, but they are in there).
Deliberately Christian? Yes, she is religious, but I don’t see anything in there that is deliberate. One thing that stems from her religion and comes across in the books is morality and faith.
I was just recently talking to someone who said that her parents didn’t let her read Harry Potter until high school because of kishuf. I simply did not chap- even if little kids think that magic is real after reading them, that’s still not kishuf. And even then, it doesn’t exactly take rocket science to figure out that magic really doesn’t exist, and it’s the rare kid past the age of about ten who still thinks magic is real- even all of those kids who sat up the night of their eleventh birthday waiting for an owl from Hogwarts don’t actually think it’s really true. Shocker. *sits back and waits for the cries of “heretic!”*
(Technically, according to the Rashbam, it wouldn’t be considered kishuf if only because it’s not listed in the Torah as being kishuf- he says that if it’s not in the Torah as kishuf, it could have a natural reason that we just don’t understand because it hasn’t yet been discovered. That’s one of the reasons, incidentally, that hypnosis was permitted long before it was discovered not to be magically based.
Oh, and the Shulchan Aruch would apparently permit nonverbal spells as they don’t mention the name of an avodah zara, but that’s an extrapolation, so feel free to correct me on that one.)
I don’t really get connecting Harry Potter and Judaism, and honestly it feels a bit squicky to me, but still, I don’t get all the kishufy stuff.
And I’ve read all of the books and seen a couple of movies (to my dismay… about ten hours of my life I’ll never get back) and I fail to see specifically Christian allegories. You find them if you look for them (and that’s incidentally my opinion on literary criticism as well, so if you’re into that then we’re at an impasse here).
and I fail to see specifically Christian allegories. You find them if you look for them (and that’s incidentally my opinion on literary criticism as well, so if you’re into that then we’re at an impasse here).
Indeed. JK Rowling != CS Lewis.
The Wolf
The Issur of Kishuf is not the Issur of Avoda Zara.
Something I received around the time Harry Potter was super-popular:
??????? ?????? ??? ??????? “?’ ???? ???? ????? ??????” ??????, ??? ?????? ??? ?????? ????”?. ????? ?? ??????? ???? ?????? ???, ???? ?? ??? ?? ????? ?????? ??????? ??????? ?????? ?????? ???? ?????? ??????.
????? ??????? ?????? ????? ???? ????? ???, ??? ??? (?”?) ???? ????? ?????????. ???? ?? ????? ???? ???? ???????? ?????? ????? ???? ??? ????? “?????????”, ?????? ???? ???? ????, ??? ????? ??????? (??? ????????? ??).
???? ???? ?????? ????? ????? ??????. ?? ??, ???? ????? ??, ???? ????? ?? ??? ????? ????? ?? ???, ??? ?? ????? ?????? ?????? ???? ????? ??????, ???? ?????? ?? ???, ?????? ?????”?. ?????? ??? ???? ?? ???? ???? ????, ????? ????? ??? ??? ????? ????? ?? ??? ???? ???.
????? ?????? ????? ????? ???? ?????? ????????. ??? ??????? ??? ????? ?? ?’ ????? ??????, ???? ?????? ?? ????? ??????????, ??? ???? ?? ????? ??? ?????. ???? ?????, ????? ????? ??????, ???????, ?????? ???????, ????? ???? ?????? ???????? ???? ???? ?????.
???? ???? ????? ????? ????? ???????, ????? ??????, ?????? ???? ????? ????. ????? ???? ???? ????? ?? ????? ?????” ?’ ???? ???? ????? ????, ?’ ???? ???? ?????? ??? ????, ??’ ???? ???? ????? ??????.
????? ????.
HaLeiVi: Like I said, I was extrapolating. I heard both the opinions of the Rashbam and the Shulchan Aruch in the context of hypnosis- I guess the Shulchan Aruch doesn’t carry over.
I think that what the Rashbam says, however, still stands (he specifically beings up kishuf).
I don’t see the point in comparing Harry Potter to judaism. You don’t gain much. I don’t see the christian undertones either. It’s not quite like the Narnia series which is obviously christian. I do like comparing it to real life in some ways though. Dementors and boggarts are depression and the things we’re afraid of. You can fight depression by taking your happiest memory and letting it fill you up until there is no more room for anything else. You can fight fears by making them seem ridiculous to your own ears. I think that J.K. Rowling intended for people to view it like this. Note- I don’t mean that clinical depression can be cured with mental exercises, although perhaps it is. I don’t know. I’m referring to the kind of depression that almost everyone gets once in a while.
Just a few sidepoints- (to quote Shopping)Half-blood=people who have intermarried parents and think they are jewish… That doesn’t work because half bloods are still wizards… unless you wanna say that you’re referring to a case in which the mother is jewish, in which case you shouldn’t say they think they’re jewish in that way, because they actually are.
(to argue on yytz)-if you’re going to list the failings of the other 3 houses, put in the same for Gryffindor-not every single person in each house fit the description, and every house has their good guys and their bad guys
writersoul-Thank you for saving me the time to write that. Seriously, shkoyich on pulling it all together and writing it out so well.
Gamanit-precisely.In regards to comparing, the religion situation, and dementors. Complete tangent, but I have a friend who, shall we say, at times is the impersonation of a dementor. She sucks EVERYTHING out of you… so when she was in a situation once in which i knew that she was going to pretty much give me the dementor’s kiss, i made her chocolate brownies, cuz chocolate is the cure 🙂 B”H it worked!
Also, Umbridge is the nachash. Actually, never mind. She could be Balak.
Not to start the whole religion thing again, but as pure lehavdil mashalness, Snape could be the person (forgot his name-john? the other one? ) who started the offshoot of christianity to prevent other jews from sinning and went undercover in order to do so.
😀
Lets do the same with hunger games!
The games=???? ???
Pres snow=yetzer hara
Choice between fake and peeta=choice between good and bad
By the way could anyone tell me how to start a new thread?
The games are gehenom
go to CR homepage, look at top left
Smile E. Face- I forgot about the chocolate part :). I think you’re referring to Peter, but it wouldn’t work because Peter went to the Christians for altruistic reasons. Snape became a Death Eater for real, and only later repented and became a spy. He also never tried preventing others from becoming Death Eaters.
Hunger games fan- Welcome to the coffee room!
To start a new thread, once your on the Coffee Room page, just click on the top grey row that says TOPIC – ADD NEW
I always though the same.
I posted the same topic on a french forum months ago.
Magic : a bit of hassidism. Dumbledore is more like a Rebbe
Bumpius humorus!
And Hogsmeade would be Lakewood (place filled only with wizards/Jews, and Roshei Yeshivos (Aberforth))
Once this thread is around anyway:
Can someone please explain to me how the time travel in the third book makes any sense? I’ve left it as tzarich iyun for at least ten years by now.
yes – I NEVER understood it. I mean, how come people don’t just turn back time, so that people don’t get killed? Even if they are rare, McGonagall was able to get one for a student….surely it wasn’t the ONLY timeturner in the entire world! Or why didn’t Voldemort think to turn back time, when he realized Harry had discovered his horcruxes? He could have changed them to different objects…..or, Dumbledore could have never brought Riddle to Hogwarts….etc etc….
cozimjewish:
What you mentioned is actually the only part that DOES make sense. You see in the Harry Potter universe, the way time travel works is that anything that happens when you go back in time, was already applied to the original present when it happened. Which effectively means that you can never change anything by going back in time because whatever you change would have already happened the first time around in accordance with the change. So you can’t go back in time to save someone who had been killed because if you would go back in time and save him/her, he/she would have never died in the first place. The fact that someone dies, by definition means that no one in the future had gone back in time to save him/her.
Which leads us to the part that doesn’t make sense which is that in the third book, they are trying to change the past, which is impossible. Why didn’t they just wait five minutes and see if Sirius would get kissed. If he does, then they can’t go back in time and if he doesn’t then perhaps it was because in the future they had gone back in time and saved him, in which case they will then be forced to actually go back in time and save him. Which leads to the next question – how do you have the choice to go back in time? Either you already did or you already didn’t. Similarly, what’s with the whole emphasis on making sure not to be seen? If they hadn’t seen themselves the first time around then it won’t be possible for them to see themselves the second time around.
PAA – What you said about someone being killed isn’t true – they saved Buckbeak, remember? I guess it’s just something we can’t understand…
“PAA – What you said about someone being killed isn’t true – they saved Buckbeak, remember? I guess it’s just something we can’t understand…”
That just means that Buckbeak hadn’t actually died the first time around. If you read the passage carefully you’ll see that it doesn’t ever say that he died; all it says is that they heard the axe. But they didn’t actually see what happened. When they go back in time we find out that what they heard was Macnair hitting the ground in frustration.
Personally never been able to underatand that either. IMHO, Terry Pratchett and Stephen King are the only authors to make tine travel work, avoiding the whole paradox situation
If I recall correctly it worked out in Artemis Fowl, in that he only went back in time because of what he had done when he had gone back in time. But that still doesn’t address the bechirah issue. Which is actually not all that different from the bechirah issue in Judaism with Divine Omniscience.
Didnt really enjoy Artemis Fowl, he seemed too smarmy for my liking
Can someone please explain to me how the time travel in the third book makes any sense? I’ve left it as tzarich iyun for at least ten years by now.
It’s all about ???? ???? ?????. See R’ Chaim Soloveitzhik (Hilchos Yibbum), R’ Shimon Shkop (shaarei yosher).
And he wasn’t so brilliant after all – he fell for the time paradox. Though in his defense, in other books time travel works differently.
yes – I NEVER understood it. I mean, how come people don’t just turn back time, so that people don’t get killed? Even if they are rare, McGonagall was able to get one for a student….surely it wasn’t the ONLY timeturner in the entire world!
It was. The Ministry of Magic’s entire supply got broken in the battle.
(‘?’ ??? ?) – and before that people were very wary of messing with time, due to various unforeseen circumstances (‘?’ ??? ?).
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