Jewish Life Lessons From Board Games
Tech Tribe Dispatch 182
💡 Think:
This Shabbat we’re hosting our first ever Board Game Shabbat!
Samuel Reshevsky was an International Grandmaster and seven-time U.S. Chess Champion. He was also an Orthodox Jew who lived in Crown Heights. At times he would attend services at Chabad World Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway. The Rebbe even tasked Reshevsky with delivering a message to Bobby Fischer.
In 1948, the Rebbe shared a lesson from the game of chess while Reshevsky was attending services:
In the game of chess, there are two types of pieces: the back rank pieces, the king, queen, knights, bishops and rooks, and the foot soldiers, the pawns.
The higher value pieces have a lot of flare - it’s able to perform complex maneuvers and quickly overtake the board. Meanwhile the pawns are left to move forward just one square at a time.
Try as the rook or even queen might, however, they can never change their status. Yet the lowly pawn, when it reaches the other side of the board, can become elevated to any rank, even that of queen.
Chess lends a deeper understanding in our relationship with G‑d. In the higher spiritual realms, there exist both angels and souls. Angels are comparable to the back row in chess: they can leap from place to place, yet they can never advance beyond their original rank. By contrast, our souls, like “simple soldiers”, are slow-paced and deliberate. Although they are only able to advance one small step at a time, when they complete their mission in this world they may attain a very high level.
(However, just as in the game, the pawn cannot become a king, for there is only one king, in life there is only one king, the King of Kings.")
🏃 DO:
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😍 Fave:
Spicy? Sweet? Check out Gochujang Caramel Cookies
🔥 Lit:
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