Bobby Fischer was perhaps the greatest chess champion of all
time. He certainly was the greatest native born American chess champion. He was
a genius at chess but a completely despicable and neurotic individual as a
human being. His long time follower and himself a chess expert Frank Brady has
written a fascinating biography about Bobby Fischer. The biography, titled
“Endgame,” presents Bobby Fischer as he was with all of his neuroses, bigotry,
hatefulness and unbelievable talent as a chess master. He was born to a Jewish
mother and an uncertain father. The mother, a wild liberal Leftist advocate,
raised him and she was a truly doting Jewish mother.
Brady is of the opinion that Bobby Fischer, raised in
polyglot Brooklyn had a traditional bar mitzvah commemoration. However
Fischer’s attention to Judaism was very tenuous at best. His passion and
religion was chess from childhood on. His school work and attendance was
desultory at best because of his continuing concentration on chess. He played
chess in the public parks with the older players who gathered there daily. He
was a regular at The Manhattan Chess Club and there met many of the grandmasters
of chess of the twentieth century. Most of them were Jewish. He was especially
combative and competitive with Samuel Reshevsky, a world grand master who was
an observant Orthodox Jew who I knew personally when I lived in Monsey, New
York. Fischer’s genius was recognized by all and even as a teenager he was a
feared opponent and a fierce competitor. He was sponsored for chess tournaments
by the Manhattan Chess Club and soon came to international attention in the
rarefied world of professional chess players. The chess world then in the
middle of the twentieth century was dominated by Russian grand masters such as
Boris Spassky and Gary Kasparov.
These Russian champions were Jewish but Fischer saw them as
Russian and he hated Russians. He also hated Jews as I will discuss shortly. He
claimed that the Russians ganged up on him, fixed games between themselves to
deprive him of opportunities to win the world championship and were basically
despicable people. Fischer suffered from serious paranoia and believed that he
was entitled to deferential treatment that no other chess champion ever
received or demanded. The ironic thing is that most of the time he had his way.
His defeat of Spassky that gained him the world championship and made him a
wealthy man sparked unprecedented interest in chess in the United States and
throughout the world. But his temperament was so mercurial that no one knew how
to deal with him.
He went into isolated seclusion for many years after winning
his world championship. He joined a cultist church organization and gave
it millions of dollars only to become disillusioned and a bitter foe of it. His
personal life was as disordered as his personality though he finally apparently
did marry a companion of his. He eventually agreed to defend his title against
Kasparov. The venue that was chosen was in Yugoslavia, at that time breaking up
in a terrible atrocity filled civil war and under American sanctions not to
visit there. Fischer ignored the warnings, defeated Kasparov in Yugoslavia and
became an outlaw to the American government. He eventually moved to Iceland
where he gained political asylum and died and was buried there – no longer a
hero to Americans and even to the professional chess world. His foul and
erratic personal behavior and terrible rantings and ravings about Jews,
Russians, and the United States had finally caught up with him.
Even genius in one field of human endeavor – in this case
chess – does not provide immunity for evil behavior and despicable attitudes.
Bobby Fischer was a vicious anti-Semite. Brady is hard pressed to find any
reason or turning point in Fischer’s life that made him so. Every scurrilous
libel about Jews and Judaism was believed by Fischer and spread by him. As such
he falls into the category of the many Jewish self-haters that history has
spawned. In fact he became the poster boy of the neo-Nazi groups throughout the
world. But as is usually the case in such circumstances he was himself the
greatest victim of his own unreasoning hatred of Jews. His rabid anti-Semitism
more than anything else robbed him of the approbation and respect that his
chess genius should have earned for him.
Brady’s biography is fascinating and a great read. One need
know nothing about chess to reap its benefits and insights. It records another
example of genius gone wrong and talent befouled by hatred, bigotry, avarice
and hubris. In that regard it serves as another type of medieval morality play
for all of us.
This is an
“only in America” type of story. On January 11, 2009 the New York Giants
professional football team played the Philadelphia Eagles in a divisional
championship playoff game at Giants Stadium in New Jersey. Since all New
Yorkers are convinced that they own New Jersey as well there is no problem that
the New York Giants play their home games in Rutherford, New Jersey. The New
York Times in order to mark the occasion of the playing of this momentous game
published a feature column entitled: “A Prayer Ritual Shared in Religion and
Football” in its January 10, 2009 issue of the newspaper. The thrust of the article
refers to a Jewish family in Brooklyn that operates a niche clothing store. The
owners of the company have a religion – the New York Giants. Its fortunes
occupy the center point of their lives and when the Giants have a bad season
the factory owners are depressed for the whole year. So, in the fall of 2007 when the Giants were
losing badly and regularly, Jay Greenfield, one of the owners of the clothing
company, “was a desperate man. His team had gone 1-3 in the preseason. The
Giants lost their two regular season games and confidence sagged in their
quarterback, Eli Manning.” There was a customer of the company who was a
Lubavitcher chassid who visited the store regularly to buy material for his own
clothing store located in another section of Brooklyn. But he would prove to be
an apparent savior to the Greenfields and indirectly to the Giants.
The article
continues: “It was around this time that the rabbi, (every chassid is a rabbi
to the New York Times, BW) who acknowledges not watching television, let alone
Giants games, visited. With Yom Kippur approaching, [he] was trying to
encourage Mr. Greenfield to do the Tefillin prayer – which includes strapping a
pair of black leather boxes containing biblical verses around the head and on
the arm, hand and fingers and reciting a prayer declaring loyalty to God and a
request for blessing. The rabbi told Mr. Greenfield that the ritual would help
make it a good new year.” Greenfield then told the rabbi, “You’re talking about
a good new year, but if we lose against the Redskins this Sunday, my year is
over.” The article continues: “It was then that Mr. Greenfield, who follows
strict game day rituals including wearing the same jeans, undershirt and
jersey, got an idea. None of his rituals seemed to be working and here was this
persistent rabbi telling him that simply saying the Tefillin prayer might be
just the thing needed to help Mr. Greenfield get what he wanted for his team.
‘I was at a weak moment, so I considered it,’ Mr. Greenfield said. I told the
rabbi, ‘I’m not greedy – I just want to make the playoffs.’ He said, ‘What’s
the playoffs?’ I said, ‘You need to know that now.’” The rabbi finally said: “I
told him, ‘We know prayer goes a long way, and I can see this Giants thing means
a lot, so let’s go for the prayer.” Mr. Greenfield did and saw immediate
results. The Giants beat the Redskins the following Sunday.
“The Giants kept winning in 2007 and Mr. Greenfield kept praying. Soon, his brother
Todd, was also praying. So were many of their friends and relatives who
attended the home games – and many games on the road. The Tefillin prayers
became rituals at the tailgating gatherings before games at the Meadowlands and
when some of the fans traveled to games on the road, the rabbi would contact
Chabad rabbis in those cities to help Mr. Greenfield’s group with pregame
prayers. The giants went on to qualify for the playoffs and began their playoff
run. Mr. Greenfield said he saw divine intervention during the playoffs in a dropped
pass by a receiver for the Dallas Cowboys, which changed the tide of the game
and allowed the Giants to go on to victory. ‘When that happened, about 50
people jumped up and said ‘Thank you, rabbi. We really thought that God was on
our side.’ The Giants went on to win the Super Bowl, but even that did not get
Mr. Greenfield to start attending synagogue or reading the Torah regularly –
although he did agree to pray with the rabbi in the off season. The pregame
Tefillin prayers have gained momentum…putting on Tefillin in the Meadowlands
parking lot drew stares and comments, but as the Giants continued to win, other
fans – even some non-Jewish rooters–began doing it too. ‘He thought he was
converting me,’ Mr. Greenfield said of the rabbi, ‘but I got a sector of his
community interested in the Giants.’ [The rabbi said] ‘[T]his means a lot to
Jay and each one should pray according to what he needs. I may hear the score,
but I still really couldn’t tell you if the Jets were playing the Mets. I don’t
know the difference. But if it makes him happy, only good things will come out
of it.’”
Well, my
friends, the Tefillin notwithstanding, the Giants lost their January 11 playoff
game in a badly played effort by
them. The great theological
question of testing God by apparently performing His will is raised in this
otherwise tongue in cheek article. I am reminded of an incident that happened
in my youth. A neighbor of ours was running for alderman in the Democratic
primary election which was to be held during the intermediate days of Pesach.
In order to attract the mainly Orthodox Jewish vote in the area he demonstrably
showed and advertised his purchase of matzot for the holiday. To his chagrin,
he lost the election by a wide margin. He then publicly threw out the remaining
matzot from his second-floor window shouting for all to hear: “The devil take these
stupid crackers!” Tying the fate of Tefillin to that of the New York Giants or
vice versa is to me the wrong way to deal serious matters of belief, tradition
and human behavior. The Giants will probably have losing seasons in the future.
Will Mr. Greenfield continue with his Tefillin ritual? Making Tefillin a good luck talisman is unjustifiable
in Jewish thought and belief. God does not accept bribes from us. It is
important that Mr. Greenfield, and all other male Jews, place Tefillin on their
heads and arms every weekday. But are all means legitimate in the pursuit of
having Jews observe this most important ritual? This is a question that is
being sorely debated regarding other forms of outreach in the Orthodox Jewish
world today. I enjoyed reading the article about the Giants, but it left me
vaguely disturbed as well.
There are
many religious players that play in the National Football League on all its
teams. There are regular prayer meetings
for the players. One of the teams, in spite
of its prayers, is destined to lose the game. Abraham Lincoln in one of
his famous addresses during the American Civil War made note of the fact that
both sides prayed to the same God for the destruction of the other. He felt
that to be sad and ironic but nevertheless somehow valid. It is somewhat demeaning
and sacrilegious to think of the Lord as merely a Giants fan. Prayers
unanswered are part of human life. The Lord has His own plans and agendas. Our
thoughts are not necessarily his thoughts. Judaism avoids superstitions and
good luck charms. The performance of commandments is not to be viewed as a good
luck charm. Relegating Tefillin to such a status distorts their true purpose
and meaning.
The wonderfully joyous holiday of Chanuka occurs this month. In light of the horrific events of the past few months, the message and lights of Chanuka could not come at a more appropriate and necessary time. For Chanuka, in its essence, represents the ability to withstand oppression and evil, coercion and bigotry, and to believe in the improbable miracles that have always marked Jewish history and advanced the cause of all human civilization. The story of Chanuka is made up of two radically different components. One is the war, the battles of the Hasmoneans, the blood spilled and the casualties sustained, the human sacrifice and tragedy that always accompanies the struggle for Jewish survival and a better world for all humankind. The other is the miraculous, supernatural event of the small pitcher of oil that supplied oil for eight days while physically holding oil only for one night. Chanuka is thus the culmination of man and God in the joint effort to improve our world and society. There is no message that could be more fitting for us this Chanuka season than this one. (more…)
In the early thirteenth century Ashkenazic Jews living in Germany, Austria, Bohemia and other Germanic lands began to speak a dialect of low German that soon turned itself into a jargon of German and Hebrew with some old French and Slavic words also thrown into the mix. In earlier centuries during the lifetime of Rashi (Rabbi Isaac Yitzchaki, 1040-1105, Troyes, France) the Ashkenazic Jews of France spoke the vernacular tongue of the area – old French. The small Jewish community in England then spoke Chaucerian English interspersed with old French as well. Since the time of the Norman conquest of England much old French had already seeped into the English of the time. However, after the expulsion of the Jews from both England and France in the thirteenth century the Ashkenazim trekked eastward into Germany, Central Europe, Lithuania and Poland and eventually Russia. There they fully developed their own unique language, which soon became known as Yiddish – literally, Jewish. Based on German, Yiddish absorbed within its vocabulary many Hebrew words, biblical, midrashic and Talmudic phrases, Slavic and Polish words and a semi-sing-song intonation reminiscent of Jewish prayer and study melody. As a living language it constantly developed and expanded over the centuries.
Even though there were strong differences in dialect and pronunciation between Ashkenazic Jews living in these different countries, Yiddish became the universal language of Ashkenazic Jewry wherever these Jews were living or travelling. It achieved its own status as being “mamaloshen” – the beloved mother tongue of Ashkenazic Jewry. Yiddish also developed colloquialisms, sayings and wry comments on life and people – all almost untranslatable into any other language – that became its identifying hallmark. It is a language of nuance more than vocabulary. As a folk language possessing few rules of grammar and syntax Yiddish has an earthiness, sometimes even a touch of vulgarity to it, a true reflection of everyday Jewish life. There is also a certain melancholy in its phrases but paradoxically it contains much wry humor and bemused comments about human foibles and life generally. And its sayings and metaphors many times also remained as the only safe way to mock and ridicule the oppressors and enemies of the Jews and the difficulties of Jews living under foreign and hostile rule. (more…)
In the American Revolutionary War, General Christopher Gadsden designed the famous flag depicting a rattlesnake and the words, “Don’t Tread On Me!” The symbol of the rattlesnake dated back as far as 1751 when Benjamin Franklin sardonically wrote that since the British were sending convicts to the colonies, the colonists should send rattlesnakes, which were native to America, over to England. Both the flag and the phrase have been appropriated in many contexts – from the Tea Party movement to rock ‘n roll songs – so now I will appropriate it for a message of Torah.
This week’s Parshah is Eikev, which, in the context of the opening verse, means “since” or “because.” It usually denotes a cause and effect relationship, such as, “Because you will observe God’s commandments, then blessings and physical rewards will descend upon you.” The great medieval commentator Rashi, however, uses an additional meaning of the word: “foot” or “heel.” He explains that there are commandments and values in Jewish life that the Jews sometimes take lightly. They grind them into the dust of everyday life by stepping upon them with their foot and/or heel. They tread on them. But these neglected commandments and values are actually the true key for spiritual success and a good life. So the choice of the word eikev is not merely literal. With the choice of that particular word, the Torah is teaching us the valuable lesson that there really are no small or inconsequential acts in life. (more…)
Decaying eastern white pine tree stump along the Pine Brook drainage in Lincoln, New Hampshire USA. This area was logged during the East Branch & Lincoln era, which was an logging railroad in operation from 1893 – 1948
“Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree,” wrote Joyce Kilmer, famed British poet who was killed in action in World War I. More than perhaps any other form of nature, the connection of trees to the Creator appears throughout Torah, Talmud, and later Jewish thought. Eternal life and knowledge are represented in the Garden of Eden in the form of trees. The wanton destruction of trees by man is expressly forbidden by Jewish law. In fact, the human race itself is described in the Torah as being a tree: “For humans are as the tree of the field.” (Deut. 20:19)
All later Jewish thought and practice has been influenced by this use of trees as the metaphor for human life in the Bible and Talmud. Trees, therefore, bear study and contemplation. They can aid us in our never-ending search for ourselves and our destiny. So here are a few thoughts for us wooden-headed humans.
A number of years ago, my wife and I were able to spend a few days in Yosemite National Park. Among the awesome wonders of nature that can be viewed there is a famous grove of sequoia trees. They are the oldest living things on our planet, some of them already being thousands of years old. They are massive in height and girth. If anyone needs a lesson in humility, standing in the midst of that sequoia tree grove in Yosemite will do nicely.
As the park ranger explained their growth and nature, and as the immensity of the trees gradually overwhelmed the visitors, a tremendous hush and palpable silence filled the air of the sequoia grove. I thought to myself, “I am standing next to a living creation of God that was here when the Temple in Jerusalem stood on its foundation, when Rome was the colossus of the world, and when there was no London, Paris, or New York. What wonderful secrets it could tell me, if only it could speak!” (more…)
Rabbi Berel Wein was once invited to a meeting with the editor of the Detroit Free Press. After introductions had been made, the editor told him the following story.
His mother, Mary, had immigrated to America from Ireland as an uneducated, 18-year-old peasant girl. She was hired as a domestic maid by an observant family. The head of the house was the president of the neighboring Orthodox shul.
Mary knew nothing about Judaism and had probably never met a Jew before arriving in America. The family went on vacation Mary’s first December in America, leaving Mary alone in the house. They were scheduled to return on the night of December 24, and Mary realized that there would be no Christmas tree to greet them when they did. This bothered her greatly, and using the money the family had left her, she went out and purchased not only a Christmas tree but all kinds of festive decorations to hang on the front of the house. (more…)
The fast day of the tenth of Tevet, which is tomorrow, marks the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem, which eventually led to the destruction of the Holy Temple and the exile of the Jewish people from their homeland. However, Jewish tradition records that today, the ninth day of Tevet, is also a sad day on the Jewish calendar, so much so that is worthy of being declared a fast day by itself.
This ninth day of Tevet is mentioned in the Jewish Code of Law. But the language there is cryptic. All it states is that the ninth day of Tevet is a sad day for “troubles that occurred on that day that are no longer known to us.” How are we to commemorate a day that has no meaning for us?
The prayers for the tenth day of Tevet make reference to the ninth of Tevet as the day of death of the great Jewish leader, Ezra the Scribe. The prayers, as well the above section in the Code of Jewish Law, also mention the eighth day of Tevet as a day that is a candidate for being a fast day. Thus, we have three consecutive sad days following one upon the other. All of these sad days have been united into the one fast day of the tenth of Tevet.
We are still left with the troublesome and somewhat mysterious question as to why the Code of Jewish Law did not clearly identify the ninth day of Tevet as being the day of the death of Ezra the Scribe. Ezra ranks second to Moshe in the hierarchy of the transmitters of Torah to the Jewish people. The rabbis of the Talmud taught us that “if the Torah had not been given through Moshe, then it would have been given through Ezra.” Why would the rabbis purposely hide Ezra’s day of death and give that sad day an anonymous character? (more…)
In the United States, the day after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday because the stores have the largest volume of sales for the year, and the merchants are therefore “in the black” as far as their ledgers are concerned, while otherwise they could be in the red with negative balances and sparse sales.
On Black Friday of 2008, a large retailer advertised that it was going to sell large screen TV sets at a considerable reduction in price. The store would open its doors at 6AM to accommodate the expected large crowds of bargain hunters. And indeed, at 6 AM, a poor, hapless part-time employee opened the doors to a waiting horde of shoppers. The mob of shoppers surged forward, pushing him to the ground and trampling over him. Ignoring him on the ground, they just grabbed their TV sets. Paramedics were called to revive him, but he died anyway. To those shoppers, the value of a human life was less than that of a flat screen TV set purchased at a bargain price.
On that very same Black Friday, there was a massacre of innocents by fanatical Moslems in Mumbai, India. There, too, human life was of no value. There was no strategic or tactical gain from the attack, just as there was none in the recent attacks in Paris. It was just cold-blooded, indiscriminate murder. (more…)
Mistakes, large and small, national and personal, are part of human existence. They also have a tendency to come back to bite us. The current wave of terror, lone wolf as it may be, is pretty much directly traceable to a number of major mistakes made by well-meaning leaders of Israel. All of these mistakes were made with good intent, and since no one possesses the gift of prophesy, the resulting troubles may not have been apparent initially. But that in no way changes the consequences of those mistakes.
The 1967 Six-Day War gave Israel and the Jewish people sovereignty over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Until then, the Moslem Wakf ruled the Temple Mount and excluded Jews from praying at the Western Wall, though this was in violation of all armistice agreements signed between Jordan and Israel in 1948. However, recognizing that it was defeated in the war that it had helped initiate, it handed over the keys to the Temple Mount to the Israeli army.
Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan, however, immediately returned the keys to the Wakf and restored their hegemony over the holiest site in the Jewish world. Since then, the Wakf has been busily destroying all possible remnants of the Jewish Second Temple and other artifacts proving Jewish sovereignty and connection to the site. (more…)
The wonderfully joyous holiday of Chanuka occurs this month. In light of the horrific events of the past few months, the message and lights of Chanuka could not come at a more appropriate and necessary time. For Chanuka, in its essence, represents the ability to withstand oppression and evil, coercion and bigotry, and to believe in the improbable miracles that have always marked Jewish history and advanced the cause of all human civilization. The story of Chanuka is made up of two radically different components. One is the war, the battles of the Hasmoneans, the blood spilled and the casualties sustained, the human sacrifice and tragedy that always accompanies the struggle for Jewish survival and a better world for all humankind. The other is the miraculous, supernatural event of the small pitcher of oil that supplied oil for eight days while physically holding oil only for one night. Chanuka is thus the culmination of man and God in the joint effort to improve our world and society. There is no message that could be more fitting for us this Chanuka season than this one. 
In the American Revolutionary War, General Christopher Gadsden designed the famous flag depicting a rattlesnake and the words, “Don’t Tread On Me!” The symbol of the rattlesnake dated back as far as 1751 when Benjamin Franklin sardonically wrote that since the British were sending convicts to the colonies, the colonists should send rattlesnakes, which were native to America, over to England. Both the flag and the phrase have been appropriated in many contexts – from the Tea Party movement to rock ‘n roll songs – so now I will appropriate it for a message of Torah.
