Newt is 27 years old when he meets a witch named Tina Goldstein. In this single instant, his world is changed. He doesn't understand how he's lived so long without her, but he never wants to leave her. Tzedek, tzedek tirdof, she tells him one day just because she thinks he might like it. It's a Hebrew phrase that means Justice, justice you shall pursue, she teaches. The day she says these words to him is the day he realizes that he might just be in love with her. Later he'll realize that she's in love with him as well. They are so young and full of passion, the world is theirs. They marry, no less in love than the day Tina proposed to him. They've been married for a little while when Newt decides to reveal what he has been wrestling with for what seems like ages. One day, he comes to her.
"I want to convert," he says softly.
"Are you sure?" she asks, because seeking converts has never been tradition and she wants to make sure that this is truly what Newt wants.
"Yes," he smiles at her.
"Okay," she says, "okay."
And so he does. They find a kind rabbi and Newt spends his time studying or going to services. After a little over two years, his conversion is complete. It is only then that he realizes that he feels more himself and at home Jewish and married to Tina than he ever has in his entire life. Together, they live happy blessed lives.
Tzedek, tzedek tirdof — Justice, justice you shall pursue. Years ago, Tina had taught him these words, and he'd fallen in love with them. Together then, they lived by these three words and passed them on to their children, and their children unto theirs. Until one day, there came a little boy named Rolf, who fell for these words just as Newt had before him. He decides, strangely sure for his young age, to live by them. Tzedek, tzedek tirdof, he repeats it as a mantra throughout his life. At age five, when he first hears the words, he says them to himself over and over until he falls asleep, never wanting to lose them. At seven, he repeats these words as he tells a bully off, defending a strange girl with long blonde hair. At 11, he says these words to himself as he comforts a muggleborn friend, doubting his place in the world. At age 15, he says these words once again to himself as encouragement as he confesses his love to the half-blood boy he thinks he might be in love with. And at 17, he sees the strange girl he had once defended from bullies all those years ago being bullied once again. Angered, he mutters these words to himself as he defends her from a mean-looking boy her age.
"Differences are to be celebrated!" he says. "They aren't to be used as childish taunts by immature teenagers like you!"
The bully's cheeks redden as Rolf takes the girl's hand and guides her far, far away from the scene.
Luna, she tells him, her name is Luna.
Luna, he repeats to himself, Luna.
Later, she will ask him, "What were those words you murmured earlier?"
"Tzedek, tzedek tirdof," he responds softly, "it means 'justice, justice you shall pursue.'"
Luna hummed under her breath as she laid back into the grass, gazing up at distant clouds soaring through the sky.
She turns her head to him slowly, "I think I rather like that," she confides in him.
She smiles, and Rolf finds himself smiling back.
Together they do pursue justice indeed. They fight for the ones who have no one left to fight for them. Creatures and beings often so unnoticeable that people call them insignificant, even nonexistent. Luna ends up being the first friend he ever brings home. She is the first friend he feels comfortable sharing his culture with, He invites her to eat latkes with him, to join him for Shabbat dinner with his family.
One day, she says to him, "I want to convert, will you help me?"
Luna had never been one for religion, so it fit that Judaism was so much more than that. She found that she had fallen in love with Judaism, with the history, the culture, and the community, with the relationship with God and the relationship with death, with its unique relationship to the world itself.
"Will you help me?" she asks him.
He looks at her in all her glory, in her radish earrings and her butterbeer cork necklace and her spangled silver robes.
He puts his hand on hers and murmurs, "Of course."
Then, before he's even realized he's done it, he's leaning forward. He looks at her and she's doing the same. And then all he knows is the feeling of her lips on his.
He's not sure who initiated it, he's not sure it matters.
It's the first time they kiss, it will not be the last.
They travel a lot, but together, they go back to Britain and they find a rabbi and a congregation that appeals to them. Years later, after she has converted, it is the same rabbi who officiates their wedding.
For the rest of their lives, they live by three little words.
Tzedek, tzedek tirdof.
Together.
And always in pursuit of justice.