THE STAR WARS film series is a global phenomenon that has captured the imagination of millions , young and old , the world over ( including me ). But , what do a space smuggler , walking carpet , little green guru , bagel-haired princess , black-helmeted villain and a wide-eyed hero have to do with Judaism ?
STAR WARS
MAY THE LORD BE WITH YOU
THE UNCANNY PARALLELS BETWEEN STAR WARS AND JUDAISM .
RABBI DR RAPHAEL ZARUM
THE STAR WARS film series is a global phenomenon that has captured the imagination of millions , young and old , the world over ( including me ). But , what do a space smuggler , walking carpet , little green guru , bagel-haired princess , black-helmeted villain and a wide-eyed hero have to do with Judaism ?
The Web is cluttered with tenuous links of Star Wars characters to Biblical Hebrew – Yoda / Yodeya , Ben Kenobi / Ben K ’ Navi , Jedi / Yehudi , not to mention the Hebrew-like script on Darth Vader ’ s breastplate .
George Lucas , the creator of the series , is certainly not Jewish , but , like many filmmakers , he draws inspiration from the classics of faith and fiction .
“ The Force ” is the enigmatic religious power at the heart of the movies that “ binds the galaxy together ”.
This notion of G-d is doubted by the earliest film ’ s pragmatist , Han Solo : “ I ’ ve flown from one side of this galaxy to the other and I ’ ve seen a lot of strange stuff , but I ’ ve never seen anything to make me believe there ’ s one all-powerful force controlling everything … It ’ s all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense .”
However , believers in the Force always utter the same phrase when parting : “ May the Force be with you .” The line is repeated in every Star Wars film . In the Bible , this is a religious greeting . In the Book of Ruth , Boaz greets his workers , saying : “ Hashem imachem – May the Lord be with you .” ( Ruth 2:4 ) An angel greets Gideon in a similar way ( Judges 6:12 ). The Force is their language for G-d .
There is , however , a deeper story that speaks to us today and draws a direct line from the Torah to the modern myth that is Star Wars . Lucas spent years trying to write his sci-fi fairy tale , but kept getting stuck , until he stumbled on a certain book . “ It was the first time that I really began to focus ,” he said . “ Once I read that book , I said to myself , ‘ This is what I ’ ve been doing . This is it .’” ( National Arts Club , 1985 )
The book was Joseph Campbell ’ s The Hero with a Thousand Faces ( 1949 ), in which he describes a three-stage journey of the hero that is common to the literature of numerous ancient cultures :
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