Good and Evil: The Battle Within the Soul

Rebuttal to Harry Potter and the War Between Good and Evil by Rabbi Noson Weisz

While we have seen many critiques of Harry Potter books from the Christian perspective, Rabbi Weisz's essay presents us with a critique from a Jewish perspective. The fault he finds with the books is not that they make the occult look attractive, not that the hero is rewarded for breaking rules, but that good and evil appear static and that, therefore, there is an absence of true freedom of will.

Rabbi Weisz says, "What struck me first is that the struggle between good and evil is not to be found in the world of Muggles. In the Muggle world, the evil of Voldemort metamorphoses into the stupidity, venality and meanness of Harry's relatives, the Dursleys. These are traits that even the courage and ingenuity of Harry Potter cannot overcome; the only method of dealing with them is escape." Indeed, it is sometimes easier to fight outright evil than stupidity, venality and meanness of spirit. Such depressing and all-too-human traits can crush the spirit more effectively than the more dramatically villianous traits of a Voldemort. As Ayn Rand wrote in We the Living, "Sure you can muster the most heroic in you to fight lions. But to whip your soul to a sacred white heat to fight lice..."

Rabbi Weisz criticizes Harry's "flight" from the muggles to the world of magic because it would render the muggle world irredeemable. The Dursleys remain "static." "But the Dursleys are presented as banal, not evil." But perhaps evil, itself, is banal. Weisz writes, "In contrast Judaism teaches that the chief purpose of life in this Muggle world is to change such negative character traits. The struggle against venality and small mindedness is also a struggle against evil. The answer to overcoming meanness and stupidity is not to escape into a fascinating magic environment, but to help change the world in which one finds oneself." But Harry doesn't escape meanness and stupidity by going to a magic environment. He continues to struggle with it as he finds the same conflicts continuing to present themselves in the forms of various mean people he has to deal with. On the other hand, Rabbi Weisz isn't, I hope, suggesting that we just stay and try to win over every mean spirited asshole we come across. Life is too short. People are very prone to inertia, that is, they remain going in whatever direction they are going and change only with great difficulty.

Rabbi Weisz says, "With the possible exception of Professor Snape, there are no ambiguous characters, nor people who undergo moral character development. From the moment of entry into Hogwarts, every one is fixed in place.... The Sorting Hat divides the eleven-year-old entrants into various houses. In the first three books, there is nothing good about Slytherin, nor is there anything bad about Gryffindor. [The other two houses have yet to play a significant role.] All the Slytherins have an evil and menacing look, with speech patterns to match, while all the Gryffindor characters are ones we can identify with." True. There are heros and bad-guys in Harry Potter. But I find a great deal more moral ambiguity than does Rabbi Weisz. As even he mentioned, Professor Snape is an excellent example of a man struggling between good and evil. A former death eater, Snape changed sides despite the fact that he was still very much eaten up by the same bitterness and resentments that probably attracted him to Voldemort in the first place. His ambivalence has attracted a large and passionate following among Harry Potter fans. Weisz says "there is nothing good about Slytherin" but I see Slytherin house as the most likely arena for struggle between opposing aims. Created for "good" by the founders of Hogwarts, Slytherin house remains a legitimate part of the Hogwarts community while in many ways posing a threat to the rest of the body by it's tendency to produce dark wizards and to reject the simple goodness of Harry Potter, "They murmered his name, as they had murmured Cedric's, and drank to him. But through a gap in the standing figures, Harry saw that Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and many of the other Slytherins had remained defiantly in their seats, their goblets untouched." Having to coexist with such attitudes creates a constant state of tension and ambiguity throughout that community. Within Slytherin, itself, we have Professor Snape, of course. But what of the students, those who wouldn't drink to Harry's victory against the Dark Lord? Many Harry Potter fans see Draco Malfoy as a redeemable character who will one day turn from the path his father laid out for him. One can see such a potential in a certain childlike innocence which he maintains despite all his tough talk. For example, when he sees Professor Quirrel drinking from the unicorn, he freaks out and runs. I also beg to differ with the statement that there isn't "anything bad about Gryffindor." We learn more about Gryffindors than the people in any other house as this is where Harry lives. None of the characters in this house is perfect. All have flaws. Both Harry and Ron succumb to the green-eyed monster, for example. They quarrel amongst themselves. They are basically "nice" people and they are perpetually suspicious of the Slytherins whom they regard as not nice. But life is like that. We do see our friends in a rosier light than our enemies. And people don't tend to change all that much over time. How many people in High School ever change cliques? Sometimes it happens but not usually. The jocks stay with the jocks, the freaks with the freaks, etc.

Professor and Headmaster Dumbledore is very committed to giving second chances and allowing for changes of heart. The magical community has also forgiven many of those who joined Voldemort and then recanted. In some cases, that forgiveness was ill advised as the parties were not always truly repentant. The possibility of change is there as is the possibility of deception. Many of those who seem one way turn out to be a very different way once you get to know them. All of these things partake of moral ambiguity.

Rabbi Weisz writes, "According to Jewish perspective, evil is not repulsive. On the contrary, to insure that it has an even chance to present us with free will choices, God made evil attractive, giving it tremendous sex appeal.... Evil sizzles with sensual pleasure, while the path of good leads to the spiritual joy associated with connecting with God." But doesn't the "evil" Slytherin house sizzle with sex appeal? As Snapesgirl writes, Slytherins Are Sexier. R.K. Rowling also wrote, "Is evil attractive? Yes, I think that's very true. Harry has seen the kind of people who are grouped around this very evil character. I think we'd all acknowledge that the bully in the playground is attractive. Because if you can be his friend, you are safe. This is just a pattern. Weaker people, I feel, want that reflected glory."

Finally, Rabbi Weisz says, "In a Jewish fairy tale, the hero would battle for the soul of Lord Voldemort and attempt to reclaim it for the good. No human being with the power of free will is unredeemable." I wonder if he would say the same of Hitler. In just the paragraph above, he has mentioned "Hitler and his Nazi war machine and the other monsters of human history." A monster, but is he redeemable? Perhaps theoretically, but I don't know any Jews who would waste their energy trying to reach out to his soul. Perhaps Voldemort is redeemable. We haven't read the last of the series (it hasn't been written). I, for one, would welcome a deeper look into the complexities of this character.

Rabbi Weisz has given us an interesting challenge in critiquing Harry Potter from a different perspective than the usual. Challenge is good. It makes us think. However, in the final analysis, I must reject his arguments. I do not think the characters are all that static, nor that good and evil are all that black and white.

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