ZVI'S HOME PAGE

KLEZMER SITES WORTH CHECKING:

• THE KLEZMANIACS  -- "We play for weddings, bar mitzvahs, and circumcisions -- on the cutting edge of Jewish music."

• HOW TO PLAY KLEZMER -- Getting started, links to other bands and to sources for CDs and sheet music, and downloadable MIDIs.

THE WIT AND WISDOM (?) OF ZVI (such as it is).

Note: These are all original, except for those which were said -- strictly by coincidence, of course -- by someone else earlier.

• Modern medical research can be compared to people trying to make an old fashioned watch while wearing boxing gloves.

• Someone who makes trouble for you almost always does so because of ineptitude or ignorant indifference, and only rarely because of maliciousness or deliberate evil intent.

• When looking for a mate, focus less on how the person meets your need and wants, and more on your ability to need and want what the person offers -- both now and in the future.

• People change, but the changes are slow, difficult and uncertain -- and are rarely in the direction which a second person wants.

• Never demand or even expect gratitude from someone you have helped.  Strangely, they may hate you for exposing their weakness, for not doing more, or for other reasons.  Conversely, do not be surprised when someone who has hurt you thereafter hates you for it.

• "God said it, I believe it, that settles it" and the like, at their logical conclusion mean, "I cannot be wrong in this, and you cannot be right."  Sometimes the extreme conclusion is reached -- "I have the moral right to kill you for disagreement."

• To say God is infinitely wise or perfectly just is arrogant of us because it assumes we know what infinite wisdom or perfect justice is.  Though laudatory, it is a judgment, and we can no more judge God than our dogs can judge us.

• Liberals, in modern parlance, are those who want to keep unchanged (conserve?) the environment, and change (improve?) societal interaction.  And conservatives, of course, are those who want to keep unchanged (conserve?) societal interaction, and change (improve?) the environment.

FABLES:

• When we die, our souls (whatever those are) are immediately transported to the end of time -- where no questions are left unanswered.

• Before we can be born, we must all sign an unbreakable contract.  We forget about the contract, and try repeatedly to break it, usually causing ourselves much pain in the process.  However, the contract is so skillfully crafted that we fulfill it even when we try to break it.  The contract is very short -- "I will make mistakes."

POEMS (with apologies to Omar Khayyam)

• The moving cursor writes; and having writ; It stops; you need not piety nor wit

• To bring it back and cancel any line; Nor need you tears to change a word of it.