BS”D Normally, I do not drink alcohol, wine or spirits, other than kiddush and havdala and sometimes a drink during a Shabbat or Yom Tov meal. And it has been quite a while since I last smoked marijuana. But today in honor of Hod of Malchut and the three days of Sephira prior to Shavuot and hearing Hashem say the words of the Ten Commandments, I took a glass of wine and made a l’chaim in the afternoon and it led to two more glassfuls which made me shicker. After it wore off three or four hours later, I realized the difference between an alcoholic and a pot head:

BS"D

It always struck me as a bit odd that the U.S. under the Obama administration sent $1.3 billion in hard cash to Iran in three different shipments by air. Why cash? What if a plane went down? What then? Had the money transfer been handled through bank transfers, nothing would be lost. But after I read the tweet by the Iranian foreign minister threatening to blow the whistle on European politicians who were on the take concerning their part of the deal, I began to wonder: Who counted the cash that Obama sent? And when did they count it?  I wonder if the entire Iran deal had little to do with nukes. Maybe it mostly had to do with corruption and greed on the part of the Obama administration and their familiars, both elected and non-elected swamp rats, water moccasins, and gators.

BS”D Two days ago, I reached my goal of losing 70 pounds, going from 232 pounds down to 162 pounds. It took a little over four years, and required a complete change of diet and lifestyle, but it was necessary. The ordeal began with a blood test that caused my doctor to tell me that I was a walking time bomb, with blood sugar at 178 and just about everything else, cholesterol and blood pressure, etc., just as bad. My doctor wanted to give me insulin and I balked. Instead, I went to work on myself, cutting out sugar completely, especially my beloved cake and chocolate and ice cream, and radically diminishing the amount of meat and chicken I ate. And began to walk, ending a 55 year non-stop record of sedentary non-activity, largely limited to sitting in one chair, getting up and moving to another chair. I started walking. 

BS"D  Perhaps the very first lesson in the Torah is that G-d created His world with Sefer, Safar and Sippur, text, number, and story, which is basically the 22 letters of the Hebrew Alef-Bet and the Ten Sephirot, the Divine Emanations, and the infinite number of stories in creation. All of existence is a story told by a Storyteller Who wants a happy ending. And this particular Storyteller always gets exactly what He wants.