Harry Potter, the River of Eden and Standing Tall

Professor Dumbledore, Fawkes and the Sorting Hat

I have read all of the Harry Potter novels. I have listened to all of the audio books of these novels. I have also watched all of the movies, in theaters and at home. Harry Potter came out when I was around the same age as the characters, so in some way I feel like Harry, Ron and Hermione were my beloved friends and classmates. I remember eagerly awaiting book release parties and delighting in all the creative ways that fans from all over the world celebrated these books. My sisters and I would fight over who got to read the one copy my mother would buy us as a household first. My mother would yell at me for reading the books instead of going to bed as a high school student. 

As an Indigenous Jew, it isn’t a surprise that I am a Ravenclaw. A Hogwarts house valued for its intelligence and connection to the natural world. As a Ravenclaw, I love Fawkes. I love that our first introduction to Fawkes is as the phoenix bird bursts into flames in Professor Dumbledore’s office and is re-born from his own ashes. (How casually Dumbledore says that ‘its about time too, he’s been looking dreadful for days.’) I love how Fawkes is summoned to Harry because of his loyalty to Dumbledore in the Chamber of Secrets. Not only does Fawkes deliver him the Sorting Hat from which he pulls the Sword of Gryffindor to stab the basilisk, he also heals Harry from the basilisk venom with his tears and carries him out of the chamber to safety. I love that it is because of the special magical properties of his tail feathers that end up in both Harry Potter and Voldemort’s wands that special and rare magic is able to take place. I love how much he loves his chosen companions and how loyal he is to them.

To me, Fawkes is the most vivid representation of a Christian string of thought that connects fire, death, and re-birth. It is through fire that one can stand tall, rise up again after a struggle, even with death. This bird is the Christian symbol of that struggle and triumph. I want to rise up, stand tall, and be triumphant but how to do this in the way of my own peoples and traditions?

I am a water baby. As a child I used to love being in water and I still do. My most cherished childhood memories are of me at the beach on the Pacific Ocean or the Mediterranean Sea, playing with the waves and letting my body be encompassed by the water. As an adult, I have realized that if I am to develop a relationship with the universe, creation, or a higher power of any kind, the path for me is laid out through water. 

Indigenous peoples and Jews from all over the world have different relationships and different thoughts about water and its connection to life. I just read “The River From Eden” a chapter of Aryeh Kaplan’s book “Waters of Eden: the Mystery of the Mikvah.” In this chapter Rabbi Kaplan talks about how God knew that eventually people would make mistakes, and that in the middle of the Garden of Eden he created a river that eventually separated into four headwaters: Pishon, Gihon, Chidekel, and Phirath. That these rivers were made as a way for people to always have a link back to the Garden of Eden and to God itself: by immersing themselves in the river. 

In Jewish tradition, there is a ceremony of Mikvah, to immerse yourself in a natural body of water. There are many reasons why people choose to do so, but one of them is to become more in touch with the holiness within before a sacred moment in your life: like sexual intercourse with your life partner, preparing to enter the day of rest each week, or converting to Judaism. Rabbi Kaplan explains that the root of the Hebrew word for Mikvah, has the same letters as the Hebrew word of Kumah, to rise up or stand tall. That there is a midrash where Adam, after being kicked out of the Garden of Eden, repented by sitting in one of the tributary offshoots of the river of Eden. That this was his link back. 

We live in a world that demands that many of us rise up and stand tall in different ways at this moment. I draw comfort from this origin story of one of my peoples and how accessible it is to me. As much as I love Fawkes, I don’t need to be him to stand tall in this moment. I simply need to fall into the waters of the river with an open heart and there I will find my answer. The waters will connect me back to the Garden of Eden and to God. What a blessing.