Pokémon Go and Torah

What do Pokémon Go and the Torah have in common? At first glance, nothing. The Torah is a Divine blueprint for life and Pokémon Go is a game that is causing people to bump into trees and fall off the edge of cliffs.

If you’re not familiar with Pokémon Go, here’s the short version: It’s the first augmented reality game, combining the real world and the virtual one, to take off among the masses, so that millions of people now travel around actual locations looking for Pokémons which they then catch on their phones.

The lesson of Pokémon Go is that what you see on the surface is not the sum total of what’s there. The local park isn’t just paths and playgrounds; there are Pokémons hiding in it that you can only see on your phone. Everywhere you go, there is more to be seen than what your naked eye can discern.

We don’t need Pokémon Go to tell us that there is more in the world than what we see on the surface. We can only see the physical world, but we know that the spiritual world is its underlying basis. All our encounters are deeper than they seem; they are opportunities for mitzvos and spiritual growth.

Because we love the idea behind Pokémon Go, we have decided to have some fun with it. We have hidden a Pokémon inside one of our intro videos and we challenge you to find it. The first one to send us a screenshot of it to info@torahlive.com will win a year’s subscription to Torah Live! Good luck...