Did you ever notice our common propensity to hide from reality?  The uncomfortable email we let sit, the bills or paperwork we leave unprocessed, or romantic relationships we pursue that have zero objective future: reality can be uncomfortable.   

I couldn’t help but be struck by that tendency in full bloom in the Wall Street Journal’s news video about Atami, Japan, a resort town that has recently catered to thousands of paying male tourists on vacation with their computer game-generated girlfriends.

As one hotel manager in Atami said, “We try not to ask too many questions because we want them to be able to remain immersed in that game world.”

It’s to that propensity within us that the Torah speaks when it says in this week’s portion, “I have placed life and death before you…and you shall choose life!”

My teacher, Rabbi Noah Weinberg, may his memory be a blessing, used to give me a hard time about that.  “Wake up!” he’d say.  “You want to be alive or dead?  Choose or escape?”

Where in our lives are we vacationing in our own Atami, Japan?

Shabbat Shalom,

Henry Harris