Objects to ‘escapist’ characterization

I take exception to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s Jan. 1 assertion that society chooses escapism instead of dealing with life’s challenges and being devoted to one’s family. As an honorable citizen and retired lieutenant colonel who has both a full and part-time job, I volunteer in nursing homes and consider myself a caring father and devoted husband. I am offended by the rabbi’s conviction that there has been “a gradual spiritual corrosion” in our lives that includes viewing Internet porn.

What makes him so self-righteous? Somehow, it appears that it is he who has an “insatiable appetite for fame” as exemplified by profiting from the death of Michael Jackson with his latest book. Furthermore, as a patriotic American who mourns the loss of the wounded and is compassionate for those injured in battle, I take exception to his statement that we “refuse to even watch their dead bodies come home for burial.”

Perhaps the rabbi’s article was well-intentioned, but it became a condemnation of all decent people who regularly read his column.

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