Teshuvah, commonly translated as “repentance,” actually means “return.” Teshuvah, of course, includes the concept of repentance, for teshuvah is what we do to rectify past misdeeds; but it is much more than that. Teshuvah is the capacity to “return”: to make a complete about face, to literally turn yourself inside out. In teshuvah, the very force that has been carrying you in one direction rebounds and carries you, with in even greater intensity, in the other direction. Not only sins, G-d forbid, but every negative force, from a negative inborn trait to a negative phenomenon in one’s society or environment, can be turned around into a force for good.

On one occasion, the Rebbe used the game of chess as an analogy for the uniquely human capacity—for no other creature in G-d’s creation possesses this ability—of teshuvah. The lowly pawn is seemingly the most disadvantaged and vulnerable of the pieces on the board. But when the pawn reaches the end of the board, it is transformed into the most powerful and versatile piece in the game—the queen—and is empowered to move any number of squares in any direction.

This was in keeping with the Rebbe’s custom of making use of every phenomenon in creation as a source of teaching and inspiration. The Rebbe would often quote the founder of the Chassidic movement, Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, who taught: “From everything that a person sees or hears, he should derive a lesson regarding his service of the Creator.” The Rebbe made this teaching a mainstay of his philosophy, raising the practice of deriving lessons from everyday phenomena to a high art. To the Rebbe, nothing was without significance and pedagogic potential: the date and place of an event, a quirk of human nature, a scientific discovery, a recent news story and any observable and analyzable thing in the universe.

The Rebbe would often choose examples meaningful to his audience, so that the lessons derived would be that much more appreciated. If his correspondent was an artist, pharmacist or launderer, the Rebbe would analyze his profession and derive from it a many-faceted lesson in life.1 If there was a nurse, yachting enthusiast or life insurance salesman in the audience he was addressing, this would be the subject of his discourse and the source of yet another way in which to best serve one’s Creator.2

The following essay is a free adaptation of a talk delivered by the Rebbe at a farbrengen (Chassidic gathering) conducted by him almost fifty years ago (circa 1948).3 Present at the farbrengen was Shmuel Reshevsky, a world-class chessmaster, prompting the Rebbe’s thesis on life as a chess game.

Chess4 is a battle waged by an army consisting of sixteen “pieces” or “soldiers” arranged in two rows.

At their center is the “king”—the axis around which the entire game revolves. The king is indispensable to the game, and the first and overriding priority of all the other soldiers is to protect the king, expand his dominion over the chessboard, and eliminate his opponent. The king himself rarely enters the fray of battle, unless it is absolutely crucial for the success of his army. The king can move in any direction, but he only moves one step at a time, as befits his limited involvement in the battle.

At the king’s side is the “queen”—the most versatile and potent of the battlers. She moves in all directions and her reach extends across the entire battlefield. Flanking the king and queen are the “officers,” of which there are three types, each with its own mode of movement and conquest. Their power and reach is less than that of the queen, but they, too, can move in several directions and advance by more than one square at a time.

The king, queen and officers occupy the rear row; in front of them is a row of “foot-soldiers” or “pawns.” The foot soldiers are inferior to the officers in that they can only advance one step at a time, and in only one direction (forward). But the lowly foot soldier possesses a quality which the officers do not. The officers can never change their status: they remain, throughout the game, with their original capacities and limitations. But when the foot soldier succeeds in advancing himself, step by step, to the other end of the board, he is elevated to a higher level—up to the level of queen. He cannot, however, become a king, for there is only one king.

Men and Angels

Kabbalistic teaching describes the created reality as consisting of four general “worlds” or realms. The highest realm is Atzilut, the world of “emanation,” which is close enough to its Source to have no self-perceived “existence” of its own; rather, it perceives itself as a mere extension of the divine reality. Nevertheless, it is a “world,” for it embodies G-d’s projection of His infinite and unqualifiable being via “vessels” of a distinct nature and character.

The next link in the chain of creation is Beriah, the world of “creation,” where the concepts of “being” and “existence” are born. This is followed by Yetzirah—“formation.” The lowest link is the world of Asiyah—“action”—which consists of a “spiritual Asiyah” and a “material Asiyah.” Beriah, Yetzirah and the spiritual Asiyah are “populated” by angels and spiritual beings (Seraphim, Chayot and Ofanim, respectively) of varying degrees of self-abnegation to G-d. The material plane of Asiyah is our physical universe, which contains the “lowliest” of G-d’s creatures—lowliest in the sense that they perceive themselves as beings that are completely distinct from (and even independent of) their Creator.

In a psalm attributed to Adam, the first man proclaims: “Last and first You created me.”5 For man is both the lowliest and loftiest of G-d’s creations. His soul is “literally a part of G-d above,” deriving from the world of Atzilut—that realm of creation that is never separate from its source.6 On the other hand, the soul descends to the lowest level of creation—the “material Asiyah”—to assume a physical existence which all but obscures its supernal source. But the soul’s original state lives on as an ever-present potential in man; by means of a long and laborious process—long and laborious as life itself—man can elevate himself to the highest level of intimacy with G-d.

The human being is lowlier than the spiritual angel in that he is encumbered with a material identity which greatly limits his spiritual progress and development. But he surpasses the angel in that he alone has the capacity to transcend his created state. Of all G-d’s creations, man alone can raise himself out of the “world” in which he has been placed and ascend to a higher level of relationship with the Divine.

This difference between men and angels is expressed by the fact that man is called a “journeyer” (mehalech) while the spiritual beings are called “standers” (omdim—as in the verse “I will set you as journeyers among these standers”).7 The fact that an angel is a “stander” does not mean that it is immobile; every angel has a mission, which it traverses the universe to fulfill. Angels can also advance in their relationship with G-d, deepening their comprehension of the divine wisdom and intensifying their love and awe of G-d. But they “move” only within the world of which they are part—they cannot transcend their intrinsic capacities and limitations. Only man can journey from world to world, ascending from the lowly world in which he was created and rising level after level to the loftiest level of creation.

The Game

Life is a battle and a game,8 a competition contrived by the Creator to pit us against the challenges that will provoke our deepest potentials. The game of chess can serve as a metaphor for the various components of this battle, its methods of combat, and its aims.

The “king” on the chessboard represents the “King of all kings”—G-d Himself—upon whom the entire “game” hangs. The “queen” represents malchut d’atzilut—also called kenesset Yisrael (“the community of Israel”)—the common source of all souls, which is in a state of “marriage” and unity with G-d. The three levels of “officers” are the three classes of angels that belong to the realms of Beriah, Yetzirah and the spiritual Asiyah. The lowly “foot soldier” is the human being, inhabiting the finite and confining world of “material action.”

Challenging this army is a pseudo-army, a virtual battalion equipped with everything from pawns to a “king.” For “this opposite the other, G-d created.”9 Every positive creation has its negative counterpart; every spiritual force has its malevolent counter-force; every ray of divine light has its obscuring shadow. The sovereignty of G-d is contrasted by the deification of the material and the temporal. The mission of G-d’s army is to vanquish its opponent, to reveal the fallacy of its pseudo-truths, to dethrone its god.

The front-line soldiers in this battle are the “foot-soldiers”—souls invested in bodies. Painstakingly, with their limited powers and capacities, they advance across the battlefield, defending the King’s place in the world, the core of G-dliness within their own souls (the “queen”), and the spiritual supply lines (the “officers”) to the battlefield. The officers—with their greater power and range—provide the spiritual fortitude and ammunition to help vanquish the foe. The King Himself remains, for the most part, aloof from the battle, for this is a challenge He desires that we meet on our own; but in times of extreme crisis, He is not above lending a decisive, though limited, aid to the battle, even if it means exposing Himself to the line of fire, so to speak.10

The lowly “foot soldier” bears the brunt of the battle. He fights with limited resources. His forward advance is slow and mostly one-dimensional, impeded by the physicality and the narrow horizons of his world. But when his steady determination advances him to the eighth row,11 he reveals the queen within himself and wins the battle for his King.

1. As illustrated in Week in Review articles “Art,” (vol. VIII, no. 6); “The Druggist and the Laundryman” (vol. VI, no. 18).

2. See WIR articles “Woman’s Work” (vol. VII, no. 31); “Life On Board” (vol. VI, no. 55); “Sales Pitch” (vol. VI, no. 38).

3. Upon his arrival in America in 1941, the Rebbe was instructed by his father-in-law, the then Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, to conduct a farbrengen every Shabbat Mevarchim (the “Shabbat that blesses” the new month—i.e., the Shabbat that precedes the first of the month on the Jewish calendar)—a practice he continued for more than fifty years. The talk on which this essay is based is published in Yemei Bereishit (Kehot, 1993), pp. 338-341.

4. Chess is mentioned in the Talmud (Ketuvot 61b), where it is called nadrashir; it appears in the writings of the Rishonim (early sages) as ishkakish or ishkaki. A responsum by cited in Otzar Dinim U’Minhagim (Eisenstein), s.v. shach, states that “the game of ishkaki is not like other games which involve deception and frivolous vanities, but [is a tool] for the honing of the mind and wisdom... it serves to broaden the mind when one must set aside times of leisure to rest the soul from its toils.” See also Sefer HaSichot 5750, p. 192. The Rebbes of Chabad are known to have played chess on occasion, and there is a photograph extant of the Rebbe engaged in a chess game with the previous Rebbe when the latter was recuperating at a spa in Perchteldorf, Austria (circa 1937).

5. Psalms 139:5; see Rashi on Talmud, Bava Batra 14b (s.v. al yedei adam).

6. Tanya, ch. 2.

7. Zechariah 3:7.

8. Cf. Midrash Rabbah, Vayikra 13:3; Torat Chaim, Toldot, s.v VeYiten Lecha, ch. 10; Shaar HaTeshuvah (by Rabbi DovBer of Lubavitch), part 1, 20:4; Sefer HaMaamarim Melukat, vol. IV, p. 162 (see also “The Entertainer,” WIR, vol. VI, no. 44).

9. Ecclesiastes 7:14; Tanya, ch. 6.

10. Cf. Rashi, Exodus 3:2; Sefer HaMaamarim 5710, p. 132; Likkutei Sichot, vol. II, pp. 512-513. 11. In Kabbalistic and Chassidic teaching, the number eight is associated with the level of G-dliness that transcends the entirety of creation and with the final and ultimate redemption achieved by Moshiach.