Rambam: On Beating Tetris (and Rabbi Moskowitz: On Playing Tiddlywinks)

What might the Rambam say about professional gamers? What might he say about recreational gamers? I don't know for sure, but this is what I think, guided by the wisdom of my rebbi.

Jan 12, 2024

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Artwork: DALL-E’s response to the prompt, written with the help of ChatGPT4: “A middle-aged man with a short beard, resembling the style of Maimonides, is playing Tetris. He is dressed in historical attire, wearing flowing robes and a turban. The setting is a modest, ancient room with stone walls and minimal furnishings. The man is focused on a screen that displays the Tetris game, with its recognizable colorful blocks. The contrast between the ancient attire and the modern Tetris game creates a unique and interesting scene.”

Rambam: On Beating Tetris (and Rabbi Moskowitz: On Playing Tiddlywinks)

Blue Scuti’s Record-Smashing Accomplishment

Have you heard the news that recently rocked the world of classical video games? On December 21, 2023, for the first time in the 34-year history of Tetris, a human being beat the game on an original NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) — unaided. That human was a 13-year-old Oklahoman boy named Willis Gibson (AKA Blue Scuti).

When I saw this headline, my curiosity was piqued enough to click on the video of his moment of victory, which was captured during the livestream of his 40-minute game. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an elated kid. It was heartwarming. You really must check out the 26-second clip:

Now, you might be wondering the same thing as I was: “Really? NOBODY had beaten Tetris before this boy?!” And what does it mean to “beat” Tetris anyway? Strictly speaking, Tetris is designed to be unbeatable. The blocks are programmed to keep falling faster and faster until they're impossible to maneuver in time, which will inevitably culminate in a loss.

For reasons too complicated and esoteric to delve into in this article, "beating" Tetris is defined as playing the game until it reaches its "kill screen" and crashes, due to limitations in its coding. In this case, that occurred at level 157.

I learned about this achievement by watching a fascinating video on Blue Scuti’s victory made by aGameScout (see above). The quest to push the limits of Tetris can be likened to the attempts to break the sound barrier and beat the four-minute mile: at each stage, people said, “What you’re trying to do is impossible! It can’t be done!” until someone did it, and raised the bar for everyone. Blue Scuti’s victory is currently the greatest Tetris achievement in history, but it was preceded by a number of other milestones that were equally impressive for their time.

aGameScout’s video chronicles two major innovations which allowed players to break these records: “hypertapping” and “rolling.” (Trust me, this is relevant background information for the Rambam.) An Ars Technica article explains:

The first known way past the brick wall of Level 29 was a technique that became known as hypertapping. By using a special grip that lets you vibrate a finger over the D-pad directions at least 10 times a second, you can effectively skip the "delayed autoshift" (DAS) that limits how fast pieces can move laterally when the D-pad is held down.
With hypertapping, players can effectively move pieces at Level 29 speed even when the board is stacked four or five levels high. While that gives a little breathing room, a run of bad pieces or execution can still put a hypertapper in an untenable position where the pieces start to stack up high, and completing new lines becomes essentially impossible.
Noted Tetris pro Thor Aackerlund was able to eke out a Level 30 hypertapping performance in 2011. But it wouldn't be until 2018 that Joseph Saelee used his mastery of the technique to dominate the 2018 and 2019 editions of the Classic Tetris World Championship, a live tournament that takes place at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo every year. By 2020, Saelee had hypertapped his way to a Level 35 performance, while fellow player EricICX had achieved the first Level 38 performance.
Then, in 2021, a new, even faster button-mashing technique appeared on the competitive Tetris scene. This "rolling" technique was inspired by arcade player Hector "Fly" Rodriguez, who used a similar multi-finger roll to set button-mashing records on the Track & Field arcade game. Tetris players adapted this technique by combining it with a grip that lets you tap the back of the NES controller with a "roll" of three to five successive fingers. This roll of the fingers then nudges the D-pad into a finger on the other hand to register an extremely quick series of directional button presses.
Rolling is fast enough to get pieces to the sides on Level 29-speed boards stacked up to eight rows high, giving Tetris masters quite a bit of leeway in their quest for longer games. Cheez, one of the first players to master the rolling technique, hit Level 40 in 2021, but that was just the start of how far things could go.
By the time EricICX managed to roll his way to Level 146 in August 2022, it was clear that players were getting good enough to effectively play indefinitely on the same "Level 29" speed that had been considered an effective kill screen just a few years earlier. Players were getting so good at stretching their NES Tetris games that the community started debating how to stop tournament matches from going on too long (they eventually settled on a modded game with an even faster Level 39 "super killscreen" for competitive play).

As a high school teacher, I can easily imagine teenagers sharing in Blue Scuti’s elation and admiring him for his feat. I can also imagine a Jewish day school rabbi telling his students that playing Tetris is bitul zman (a waste of time) or narishkeit (foolishness) or perhaps even taking a jab at “how the goyim spend their time.”

I find these assertions to be problematic – not because I disagree with them per se, but because such condemnations would do very little to further students’ understanding and appreciation of Torah. Perhaps they’ll guilt a student into minimizing his time spent playing video games (or make him feel guilty for not reducing his video game time). If inducing guilt is our hypothetical rebbi’s goal, then I suppose his method is the most effective. However, if I were to teach a lesson about this topic, my goal would be to help my students understand Blue Scuti’s achievement within a Torah framework.

Here is a rough sketch of the lesson I would give.

Rambam: On Perfection of the Body

As I listened to aGameScout talk about hypertapping and rolling, my mind kept returning to the final chapter of the Guide for the Perplexed (Moreh ha’Nevuchim 3:54). The Rambam outlines four types of perfection that human beings can acquire. In order from lowest to highest, these are: perfection of possessions, perfection of the body, perfection of character, and perfection of the intellect. Here is what he writes about perfection of the body:

The second kind [of perfection] is more closely related to man's essence than the first. It includes the perfection of the form and constitution of man’s body – the utmost evenness of bodily temperaments, and the proper order and strength of his limbs. This kind of perfection must likewise be excluded from forming our chief aim [in life] because it is a perfection of the body, and it does not belong to man as man, but to man as animal; he has this property in common with even the lowest animal. And even if a person possesses the greatest possible strength, he could not be as strong as a mule, and certainly not as strong as a lion or an elephant; at most, he can only have enough strength that might enable him to carry a heavy burden, or break a thick substance, or do similar things, in which there is no great benefit for the body. The soul derives no profit whatever from this kind of perfection.

The Rambam argues that the perfection of physicality is superior to perfection of possessions, insofar as “there is no close actual connection between this possession and its possessor at all.” Rather, “it is a totally circumstantial relationship, and most of the pleasure derived from it is totally imaginary.” At least man’s body is related to his soul, if only as a vessel through which it operates.

Nevertheless, the soul does not receive any direct benefit from physical perfection. Even a body in peak physical condition will only afford an advantage as a means to the end of true human perfection. As the Rambam (Hilchos Deios 4:1) writes in his preface to the chapter on health in the Mishneh Torah:

Since a healthy and sound body is one of the ways of Hashem — for one cannot understand or know [Him] if he is sick — therefore, man must avoid that which harms the body and accustom himself to that which promotes health and wellness.

Moreover, as the Rambam points out, physical perfection “does not belong to man as man, but to man as animal.” If a person tries to compete with animals, he is almost certain to lose. Humans will never match the speed and precision of an eagle catching a salmon, nor the rapidity of a hummingbird’s movement. Even with innovations like hypertapping and rolling.

Players like Blue Scuti have worked tirelessly to perfect their dexterity, hand-eye coordination, and raw speed – but to what end? While someone who competes in a marathon or tries out for the Olympics might improve their overall health and extend both the quality and quantity of their life, thus increasing their potential for pursuing the two higher types of perfection, it’s doubtful that competitive Tetris players gain any health benefits by their efforts. That is, unless carpal tunnel syndrome gets reclassified as a health benefit.

I didn’t actually have a photo of Rabbi Moskowitz doing his finger-thing, so I had to make one using Adobe Inpaint.

Rabbi Moskowitz’s Finger-Motions

My rebbi, Rabbi Moskowitz zt”l, used to illustrate the folly of pursuing peak performance in sports with a physical demonstration. He would raise his two hands parallel to his shoulders, his index fingers pointed upwards. Then, he would retract both fingers simultaneously, and extend them towards each other, parallel to the ground. He would then retract them again and point them upwards. While repeating these motions again and again, he would say something to the effect of:

“See? Look at what I’m doing with my fingers. What if we made a competition about who can perform this motion the best. And what if I won? Would that make me better in any significant way? That’s basically what Tiger Woods does when he trains himself to hit a hole-in-one. The man has skill, but at the end of the day, he’s just training himself to perform highly specific movements in a highly efficient way. If he’s the best, so what? And is he really that much greater than the second-best player, or are they pretty much the same?”

As you might guess, Rabbi Moskowitz’s analogy often angered the students who were athletes. They argued that there’s more to sports than just perfecting physical motions to the point of diminishing returns. I happen to agree with them, and we’ll return to that shortly.

The point Rabbi Moskowitz was making is an extension of the Rambam’s point about the perfection of the body. Is the ability to beat Tetris or to achieve a hole-in-one a form of perfection? Undoubtedly. But is a human perfection? No. Precision and efficiency of motion are forms of perfection that do nothing to improve a person’s essence, and are traits that humans share with animals. To the extent that a person bases his life on such a pursuit, he is wasting his life.

non-AI photo of Rabbi Moskowitz playing baseball

Rabbi Moskowitz’s Tiddlywinks

Does this mean that Rabbi Moskowitz would consider Tetris to be bitul zman and narishkeit? Not necessarily. Rabbi Moskowitz often spoke of “playing tiddlywinks” — a game that, I must admit, I do not know how to play. For our purposes, the rules of the game are unimportant.

Rabbi Moskowitz used the phrase “playing tiddlywinks” in various contexts to illustrate different points. Most frequently, he used it as a stand-in for “enjoying oneself in a manner that doesn’t significantly contribute to one’s personal growth.” Although I don’t ever recall asking Rabbi Moskowitz about his views on playing video games, I can venture a guess at what he might say.

He would likely say that sometimes, a person needs a break, and that’s where tiddlywinks comes in. As long as a person avoids becoming addicted, refrains from playing in ways that lead to negative consequences, and only plays when truly needing to unwind, then there’s no real harm in playing tiddlywinks.

The Rambam, himself, acknowledges this category of activity in Shemoneh Perakim (Chatper 4):

[Sometimes] a person might orient himself to that which is pleasurable based on health considerations. For example, if one’s desire for food becomes weakened, and he stimulates it with desirable foods, which are pleasurable and spiced. Likewise, if he is sad, he should remove his sadness by listening to singing and instrumental music, by strolling through gardens and beautiful buildings, by sitting among beautiful pictures, and other things which broaden his soul and remove the anxiety of his gloomy mood. The purpose in all of this should be to make his body healthy, and the purpose of his bodily health should be to acquire knowledge.

Likewise, if a person is feeling burnt out, stressed, or is suffering from any other mental state that might be alleviated by playing a video game, they should play until that state is rectified. As long as their ultimate goal is to return to a state where they can pursue true human perfection, then playing video games — and enjoying them — can be part of their avodas Hashem (service of God).

Additionally, I suspect Rabbi Moskowitz would concede that certain types of games can aid a person in developing virtues and honing skills. For example, chess can train a person to think many steps ahead, poker can teach a person to evaluate probabilities, and Magic: The Gathering can offer practice in strategic thinking with limited information.

Blue Scuti might have 'wasted' countless hours playing Tetris, but this endeavor was not entirely without merit. Throughout the process, he honed skills and developed virtues such as patience, perseverance, discipline, stamina, resilience, calmness under pressure, and concentration. All these qualities can be instrumental in the improvement of his soul. Although his initial intentions may not have aligned with the noble values of the Torah, the skills and virtues he acquired can significantly aid him in his pursuit of true human perfection.

Concluding Thoughts

If Blue Scuti were my student, I would not discourage him from pursuing his Tetris goals. I certainly wouldn’t dismiss his ambitions as bitul zman or narishkeit. At the same time, I would do my best to make him aware of the Torah’s framework, and I would do so in the manner prescribed by the Rambam: “[We should] accustom them to this concept with pleasantness, until they apprehend it and know it and serve [Hashem] out of love“ (Hilchos Teshuvah 10:5). I would encourage him to continue developing the beneficial character traits he acquired during his gameplay and I would trust in the power of Torah to ultimately guide him in employing these virtues in a meaningful way.

What do you think the Torah’s views are on video games? Let me know what you think!

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