Scrabble is one of our favorite games. We play it on the Sabbath, when anything involving writing or electricity is not allowed for orthodox Jews, It isn’t writing, because the tiles have letters pre-printed on them. It also doesn’t make real words because the positioning of the tiles is not permanent and disappears at the end of the game. Keeping score is also easy. We have peg boards and can also use the pages of books.
We (my wife and myself) have been members of the Jerusalem Scrabble Club which meets weekly, usually on Tuesday evening. This club is one of, if not the, largest scrabble clubs in the world. We have a typical attendance of 40 or more players every week. For many of us, it is simply an enjoyable diversion. There are some who take it more seriously and even record their games, play by play, for post-mortems after the club session,
I used to play chess. But I found that I had to devote too much time to studying the game in order to be a reasonably good player. I never aspired to anything much more than that. But I have a good vocabulary and spell well in English, so Scrabble became the game of choice. Do you have a favorite game or hobby?
Wetherhorn 