You can’t pass a billboard in Los Angeles without seeing the ubiquitous Harry Potter campaign pronouncing, “It All Ends” July 15.How ironic then, that L.A.’s Westside will be subjected to its own apocalypse of sorts – popularized as “Carmageddon” – when a dense portion of the 405 Freeway is shut down for three days. The concurrence of two such major events suggests a weekend of chaos. How ever will Potter fans make it to the Cineplex on time.
“And a little child shall lead them,” goes the famous verse in Isaiah that prophesies a peaceful world.As The Telegraph’s Sarah Crompton pointed out in 2010, Harry, played by the Jewish Daniel Radcliffe is referred to in “Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part One” as the Chosen One. “No one else is going to die for me,” Harry says, alluding to a messianic intent, and an interesting turn of phrase, since it can be read as either an affirmation or repudiation of the Christ figure.
A mystical understanding of redemption posits a world in which death can be annihilated. In the world of Potter, but Harry could only find the Deathly Hallows, it could completely eliminate the death. In the same movie, a scene of Harry and Hermione that evokes the Garden of Eden, remember the curse of the biblical foundation: eat of the tree of knowledge and the Paradise will be taken away from humanity, because the acquisition of knowledge is equal to inescapable and constant awareness of mortality.
In Aryeh Wineman’s 1997 book, “Mystic Tales from the Zohar” he speaks of the redemptive power of a child wonder or “yanuka”. In mystical literature, “the child figure is a kind of personification of Eden, a condition lacking blemish, defilement or moral complexity,” Wineman writes. The yanuka is a “wonder child capable of offering brilliant interpretations of Torah.” As it goes in prophecy, it goes in Potter: even a wonder does not work alone.The zohar goes so far as to suggest the importance of ancillaries in the redemption of the world. As the Potter movies can attest, Harry needs his friends. There is a concept, Wineman explains, of “a collective yanuka,” in which “the child-archetype has shifted from a single child to an entire generation of such wonder children.”
No adult can save the world. In much of mythological literature ("Potter", "The Lord of the Rings") as well as in the Bible, redemption comes through a child. The same Moses sealed his fate as a baby. There is a midrash that tells of a king suspect, trying to see if Moses is a threat to him. He puts his crown on the floor, and another at a distance, fire. If Moses was to reach the crown, he would reveal his real ambition. Since a child is naturally drawn to the crown of sparkling jewels, an angel descends rapidly and pushes the child into the fire. Moses burned his hand and then reach the mouth, burning lips. This, the rabbis, for example, explains his speech problem, which becomes a disadvantage seminal in his development as a leader, God s help in the redemption of Israel from Egyptian slavery.
There are things in the underworld to resist the power of death. In Jewish mysticism, "the innocence of children, the boy wonder, saying that losing the innocence, the powerful prayer of the contrite of heart, the will to die, and the preservation of a scholar in the trial" are the most essential goodness, Wineman writes.
But in the world of Harry Potter, the magic that can save the world is inextricably linked with the dark arts that could destroy it. Out the battle between good and evil, side by side, delicious images in Hollywood that suggests a world that never was, but somehow there spiritually.
The richness of the "Harry Potter", the fantasy can not finish, even if the story ends. Like the Bible, its lucid narrative can be read on repetition. But what the traffic next week is concerned, the best Carmageddon redemption is lost in a dark room, where the spiritual sustenance comes in the form of entertainment very satisfying, visceral talent through a Jewish actor and his alter ego, the Chosen One.
