Hatred of ancient Magic vs. HP Magic

[Mindy C.L.]

No: HPFGUIDX 27252

Disclaimer: This post will reflect the fact that I am an observant
Jewess. If it irritates you, you can skip this post...

Wow. With the Jewish holidays of Rosh HaShono, Yom Kippur and Sukkos upon
me in rapid succession, and all the Sabbaths in between, I fell SERIOUSLY
behind in digesting all my digests..... Since Sept. 18th, there were
exactly eleven days in which I could use the computer, so you can imagine
how far behind I fell... I finally did the obvious thing: On Friday I
printed out over one hundred pages of HP emails from my computer and read
it after my beauty nap today... It was quite entertaining, even more so
than the canon books themselves!

Which just got me thinking, last night as I was walking home from dinner
at my parents', gazing up at the full moon. It's very fortunate that the
HP wizards are not religious at all... I was just ruminating for a moment
that suppose there ARE practicing Jews in the HP universe and suppose one
of them was bitten by a werewolf??? This werewolf would for the rest of
the life be missing out on half of the Jewish holidays... since Passover
and Sukkos fall out every year in mid-lunar month, exactly at full moon.
Can you imagine the head of a household being unable to lead the Passover
Seder because he becomes a wolf every year on Passover? Which leads me to
ask the following to werewolf-related questions:

1. How long does a werewolf remain in his state -- 24 hours? less? more?
2. Does a werewolf transform only upon SEEING the moon, or does it happen
automatically on the eve of the full moon?

Okay. With all of that out of the way, here's the crux of my post.

With all of the anti-HP people getting their say, I find it a bit
perplexing. I think those people are incredibly narrow-minded, no matter
which religion they adhere to. Don't they get it???

The 'magic', 'witchcraft', and 'wizardry' that they are afraid of and
condemn, all have to do with dark forces, with accessing Satanist forces.
In fairy tales, folklore, and even Biblical sources, witches are all
basically evil, save for the odd good witch. (I find that sorcery is
usually associated with women, for some reason.) A Biblical sage whose
name escapes me at the moment was ordered to kill all witches of his
times, and they levitated themselves so that he had to destroy them from
the ground while they floated above him. Witchcraft in biblical Hebrew (I
don't know what it's called in linguistic Hebrew, I have not read the
translated books) is called "kishuf" and a witch is called a
"machsheifa". And today, "machshefa" is a very derogatory term used to
label a mean and evil person. In the local nursing home I visit, some of
the elderly embittered people even refer to some of the nurses as
"machshefas", perceiving them as mean and evil, restricting their freedom
and refusing to fulfill their needs at momentary notice.... 

As a matter of fact, there are certain segments of society in the Jewish
world who prohibit magic tricks, magicians, and magical shows -- allowing
them to take place ONLY if the magician in question makes it clear at the
inception of his show that he is using sleight of hand and eye, and he is
not using any supernatural strengths to accomplish any of his magic
tricks, lest his audience get suspicious that he is using a form of
'kishuf', which involves invoking demonic, Satanic, devilish, or
otherwise dark-worldly forces.

So we can see that witchcraft, wizardry, and magic of that sort is
basically considered suspicious and outlawed in many religious societies,
including the Jewish part I belong to.

On the other hand, however, a) THE HARRY POTTER UNIVERSE HAS NOTHING TO
DO WITH SATANIC FORCES, b) THESE BOOKS ARE TOTALLY FICTITIOUS AND PURELY
FOR PLEASURE READING. The spells, potions, and stories contained therein
are purely for interesting and fun reading. I cannot imagine any person
who is interested in studying up on witchcraft, using the canon books to
learn the trade... I still want to come across a person who becomes
negatively affected by what he reads in these cute, fun, and
thought-provoking stories. I want to meet the first person who is capable
of waving a wand, shouting MORSMORDE, and conjuring up the dark mark. I'd
like to meet a person who can perform a simple WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA charm
or transfigure a match into a needle. Not one person I know who reads
this book will be able to  perform even one hex or curse. (Although I
WISH I could apparate and use floo powder... it would simplify a lot of
my transportation woes...) The magic and witchcraft contained in all
these books are not real! WHEN WILL THESE PEOPLE WHO ARE AGAINST THE HP
BOOKS GET IT???

If the religious factions are so concerned with the quality of literature
our people read today, I suggest they review the racy and raunchy romance
novels, murder mysteries, and other 'dark' reading material out there
today, the actions of which lots more readers actually tend to copy in
real-life, and outlaw THOSE. In my never-to-be-humble opinion, the
portrayals of magical ability in the HP series is as innocent as you can
get (save for Lord Voldemort's dark actions). While I am aware that many
prominent rabbis are against the HP series, I disagree and this is my
opinion. I wish all of the HP-bashers would see the light and realize
that the type of witchcraft that is against their religion is totally
different from the magic portrayed in the books. The incantations that
are given to perform the spells have no connection to any of those scary
dark forces they are afraid of. There is not one instance anywhere in the
book where any teacher explains that accessing the magic puts them in
touch with black supernatural forces.

I hope I am making sense here and I hope I will not get a backlash from
the Jewish listmembers for my views, or from the non-Jewish ones for
mentioning my religion so many times in this post. (Robyn, I know you're
gonna kill me, so email me off-list pleeze -- and put your wand back in
the closet before you do, OK?)

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MINDY
Proud ListOwner of:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JewishMusic,
For JewishMusic Enthusiasts everywhere
and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MiamiBoysChoir
For Demented MiamiBoysChoir Fanatics like me

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