Chess and Kabbalah

For anyone interested in interested in treating chess as a spiritual metaphor:

http://www.jewish-holiday.com/kabchess.html

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
For anyone interested in interested in treating chess as a spiritual metaphor:

http://www.jewish-holiday.com/kabchess.html

The BWA (Brothaz Wit Attitude) , formerly the Apostles were on this a long time ago.

Originally posted by kirksey957
The BWA (Brothaz Wit Attitude) , formerly the Apostles were on this a long time ago.

I was quite surprised when nothing kabbalistic turned up on my thread search. Can you direct me to the fruitful outcomes of your discussions?

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
I was quite surprised when nothing kabbalistic turned up on my thread search. Can you direct me to the fruitful outcomes of your discussions?

When the Apostles first started as a clan we took a lot of goading and sometimes heat because it was generally thought that we must be a bunch of fringe lunatics. That would not be hard to understand as when you read the forums, well let me not get negative. Anyway, I suggested that chess was a "spiritual game" in that it was a game of unlimited possibilities. It was also much like life in that we often must give up pieces to find ourselves in a better "winning position." I also maintained that the core of the clan system, and perhpas the site, was the idea of community, which to me is a spiritual value. I accepted anyone who wanted to be in my clan regardless of their creed or affiliation or lack thereof. My clan has been comprised of some very devout and dedicated Christians, some of whom have been trained clergy. I have had some who have never darkened a church door. I hope that helps.

One side note. The first person that gave my clan a goad and labeled us as a bunch of nuts is coming to the US this summer and is going out of his way to visit us (well mainly my daughter I guess) and over time we have developed a friendship. To me this is a spiritual event.

I respect what you are saying. You have a positive perspective.

I thought the Kabbalah might appeal to the less confrontational. I have read nothing of interest to me in this spiritual forum. Out of interest, have the Brothers ever discussed the Kabbalah itself?

As far as your visitor is concerned, you do seem to have turned the (virtual) chessboard into a tool for spiritual growth! I doff my hat.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
I respect what you are saying. You have a positive perspective.

I thought the Kabbalah might appeal to the less confrontational. I have read nothing of interest to me in this spiritual forum. Out of interest, have the Brothers ever discussed the Kabbalah itself?

As far as your visitor is concerned, you do seem to have turned the (virtual) chessboard into a tool for spiritual growth! I doff my hat.

I'll need to do some readin on the Kabbalah and try not to get my my feelins about Madonna to pollute my thinkin. Have a good day.

Encoded within the Pentateuch is a 58-move game of chess played by Yahweh and the Serpent, complete with analysis by Moses. You just need to know how to tease the information out of the text.

Originally posted by kirksey957
I'll need to do some readin on the Kabbalah and try not to get my my feelins about Madonna to pollute my thinkin. Have a good day.

Madonna aside--

For a pretty good read, there is The Seventh Telling by Mitchell Chefitz. It's a novel that details the development of a modern rabbi and kabbalist (Chefitz is a rabbi). It's a decent introduction in novel form, not great literature, and the format is a bit contrived, but I found it a fun read.

A really good novel that touches on Kabbalah, with no real detail, is Chaim Potok's The Book of Lights.

For a more scholarly view, which might appeal to the theologian in you, there is Kabbalah and the Art of Being by Simon Shokek. If you read Chefitz and Shokek, you'll probably be able to differentiate between the "New Age" stuff on the shelves, and serious Jewish mystical theology and prayer/meditation practices.

Oh, Daniel Matt's The Essential Kabbalah is a good start too.

Aryeh Kaplan (rabbi, kabbalist and I think a mathemetician) pointed out that there are really three kabbalah's: 1) mystical theology (which has pretty much become the "offical" theology in Judaism), 2) meditational kabbalah, and 3) magical kabbalah (which I know absolutely nothing about and tend to discount as an aberration). Kaplan's book Jewish Meditation is good on the second one.

Originally posted by Paul Dirac
Encoded within the Pentateuch is a 58-move game of chess played by Yahweh and the Serpent, complete with analysis by Moses. You just need to know how to tease the information out of the text.

Very good! But I think if it were "really" there, Moses deLeon would've "found" it and put it in the Zohar. (Of course, it might be hidden there too!) 😉

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
For anyone interested in interested in treating chess as a spiritual metaphor:

http://www.jewish-holiday.com/kabchess.html

Interesting. I'm going to start referring to my queen as ha Shekhinah!

Brucha at Yah, Shekhinah, shefa ha olamim!

Brucha at Yah, Shekhinah, shefa ha olamim![/b]

Now it appears that the Kabbalah would have all chess players avoid anyone by the name of Tess:

"Besides, the letter ח "Chess" is at thy side, and when joined, this unity, that is, the combination of the "Chess" ח and the "Tess" ט, results in causing thee to make טח "Chet" (Sin) (It is for this reason that these two letters are not to be found in the names of any of the Holy Tribes)."

http://www.kabbalah.info/engkab/zohar/TETH_CHESS.htm

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Now it appears that the Kabbalah would have all chess players avoid anyone by the name of Tess:

"Besides, the letter ח "Chess" is at thy side, and when joined, this unity, that is, the combination of the "Chess" ח ...[text shortened]... es)."

http://www.kabbalah.info/engkab/zohar/TETH_CHESS.htm

Please don't be offended, since I don't know you, and it's only so that I'm not confused that I ask--

Is this a pun? I ask since, had you not sent your message, when I read the page, I probably wouldn't have gotten it since 1) "ch" in Hebrew is pronounced something like the ch in the Scottish "loch" (and I have never been able to say it correctly); 2) the "pun" would only present itself in Ashkenazic Hebrew--that is, in a transliteration from Sephardic into English, those letters would have been written as "chet" and "tet," instead of "chess" and "tess."

Now, you may be very much fluent in Hebrew (which I am, not), and assumed I'd get the pun anyway--in which case I'm being embarrassingly dense (and way too serious).

Frankly, I think Kabbalah is way too complex to get much good out of a discussion on a forum like this--at least unless each person knows exactly where the other one is, what they've studied, etc.

Is this a pun?

It is a terrible disingenuous pun. "The wages of Sin is Chess". My knowledge of Hebrew is limited to what I've gleaned picking my way through Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon of the Old Testament. What have I learned? That a literal interpretation of any English version of the Old Testament is a fool's game.

Kabbalah? I'm at the very beginning. I love the stories, the sweep of it. The characters: Messiah, Tempter...The role assigned to the human imagination. Posting a thread on it was a half-assed attempt to talk about something light-hearted and playful in this terribly serious forum.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
It is a terrible disingenuous pun. "The wages of Sin is Chess". My knowledge of Hebrew is limited to what I've gleaned picking my way through Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon of the Old Testament. What have I learned? That a literal interpretation of any English version of the Old Testament is a fool's game.

Kabbalah? I'm at the very beginnin ...[text shortened]... talk about something light-hearted and playful in this terribly serious forum.

LOL! You nailed me! I am so terrible at puns--and Hebrew is, I think full of them. (I do now see the sin/shin pun!)

What have I learned? That a literal interpretation of any English version of the Old Testament is a fool's game.

Agreed. And the neat thing about the Hebrew, and Kabbalah, is that it encourages taking a light-hearted (and light-fingered) approach, which does not mean losing meaning...

Posting a thread on it was a half-assed attempt to talk about something light-hearted and playful in this terribly serious forum.

And instead, you get some serious-sack like me! 😕 Good effort though. I have to get off the computer for awhile, but I'll be back--hopefully not so serious, but it's "sin" my nature. (You see, I can't even pull it off.)

Cheers!