Last week my physical therapist, Torquemada, set it was OK for me to jog very slowly in the sand. I told him not to worry; “very slow” is my normal speed. And one morning, off I went, and it felt good, very good all five minutes of it. Buoyed by this success, I started out this very morning for a second time. But first I had a breakfast of bread, cheese and coffee. I did this because it says in the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Bava Kamma 92b: Sixty runners ran, but could not overtake the athlete who had breakfast in the morning. And this time I did 14 minutes. Because I was on a roll, when I got back to the apartment building, I ran up the seven flights of stairs to my apartment, would you believe, in 70 seconds. Of course, now I am in bed having taken an anti-inflammatory supplemented with a pain pill, the lesson being: The wisdom of the Talmud can only take you so far. At some point common sense should prevail. Although I don’t have much in the way of common sense, I still feel blessed, maybe for the little that I do have.
Then I feel particularly blessed because I have always enjoyed sardines packed in olive oil. This is so despite the fact that there are some people out there who consider canned sardines to be food for derelicts. And we all know that sardines are low on the food chain which minimizes the opportunity to ingest heavy metals. Best of all, they are on sale: three cans for ten shekels. I ask you, does it get it get better than that?
Lastly, having just finished celebrating Shavuos, I am thankful that as a boy, I sometimes hung out in the kitchen watching my Mom make blintzes. How she managed to consistently turn out a delicately encapsulated product is beyond me. That we are living in an era of nonstick cookware is certainly worth a Baruch Hashem. Not to brag (doing so will tempt the Evil Eye) my blintzes were a Shavuos treat.
Hope everyone had a Good Shabbos and a joyful, but tasteful Chag,
Michael