Fighting Fire with Fire

Yesterday's Torah portion was BeHar-Bechukotai.
The word BeHar means mountain. In the Torah portion it is BeHar Sinai, Mount Sinai.
The word BeHar has a connection with my family name, spelling wise.
An unsettling revelation about the family name came about yesterday, on Shabbat.
A telephone call from a newly found relative, a first cousin as it were, on my father's side {nothing was ever spoken of my father's family}.
At first I was not going to answer the phone because I had just started doing Torah. But that little voice said answer. What the news was happened to be a found newspaper article from 1945.
When they told me and read me the headline my head started to swim and I got the stomache drop. I thought a lifetime of thoughts in a millionth of a nano second.
What had been concealed is now in a state of revelation.
It is quite unsettling for me, and there isn't anybody I can talk to about it cause they're all dead.
Revelation on BeHar.
What was even more interesting was that the family who found it thought it was ultra fabulous wonderful and exciting. For me, it is a head shake and a stomache drop.
I shake my head in awe and wonder and know, whether in physical phase, world phase or divinity phase, that something beyond my comprehension has just gotta be goink on.
And the pendulum swung.
Oy.
Whether or not there will be repercussions from what was revealed is still an unknown.
But I maintain that the most exciting and unique experiences are always the total surprises.
I was of course aware to be aware of the portion. But who woulda thunk. I wouldn't a. Definitely not.
Fascinating.
{The 9th Doctor Who says fascinating a lot. I love his face. I love your face. }

Of course, a flood of memories was released.
My father. His 7th yhertzite just passed. And, of course, 7 is a main number in play in the Torah portions.
Sighs.
There is something within me, that part of wisdom, that says in this particular case you have to fight fire with fire. Something's up. All of a sudden a long lonst first cousin finds me and he's researching the family name. After all these years. After my whole life.

When I was a little girl, I would sit on my daddy's lap and he would read me my favourite poem.
I still have the original volume, "Complete Poems of Keats and Shelley", Modern Library Edition. The page still has the little piece of paper bookmark.
In honour of the good that was in my father, here it is.
{Don't anybody go making any movies about my father. He wasn't violent or in jail or anything like that. This is something totally different. He was Fighting for Civil Rights and Freedom during an era long gone, yet not so long gone. Bruce is singing the songs which carry forth the energy of that period in his new album, as it were. 1945 was a loooong time ago. My father is dead.
Too much quantum synchronicity can give one brain fry.}

A SONG ABOUT MYSELF
FROM A LETER TO FANNY KEATS
JOHN KEATS

There was a naughty Boy,
A naughty boy was he,
He would not stop at home,
He could not quiet be-
He took
In his Knapsack
A Book
Full of vowels
And a shirt
With some towels-
A slight cap
For night cap
A hair brush
Comb ditto,
New Stockings
For old ones
Would split O!
This Knapsack
Tight at's back
He rivetted close
And followed his Nose
To the North,
To the North,
And followed his Nose
To the North.

{freak out - know wonder I'm nutzoid. i thought i got the towel obsession from Douglas Adam's Hitchikers, but actually, it was from this poem. ha. the ride never stops. }

There was a naughty boy
And a naughty boy was he,
For nothing would he do
But scribble poetry-
He took
An ink stand
In his hand
And a pen
Big as ten
In the other.
And away
In a Pother
He ran
To the mountains
And fountains
And ghostes
And Postes
And witches
And ditches
And wrote
In his coat
When the weather
Was cool,
Fear of gout,
And without
When the weather
Was warm-
When we choose
To follow one's nose
To the north,
To the north,
To follow one's nose
To the north!

There was a naughty boy
And a naughty boy was he,
He kept little fishes
In washing tubs three
In spite
Of the might
Of the Maid
Nor afraid
Of his Granny-good--
He often would
Hurly burly
Get up early
And go
By book or crook
To the brook
And bring home
Miller's thumb,
Tittlebat
Not over fat,
Minnows small
As the stall
Of a glove,
Not above
The size
Of a nice
Little Baby's
Little fingers-
O he made
'Twas his trade
Of Fish a pretty Kettle
A Kettle-
A Kettle
Of Fish a pretty Kettle
A Kettle!

There was a naughty Boy,
And a naughty Boy was he
He ran away to Scotland
The people for to see-
Then he found
That the ground
Was as hard,
That a yard
Was as long,
That a song
Was as merry,
That a cherry
Was as red-
That lead
Was as weighty,
That fourscore
Was as eighty,
That door
Was as wooden
As in England-
So he stood in his shoes
And he wonder'd,
He wonder'd,
He stood in his shoes
And he wonder'd.
.....

No wonder huh.
How much of it do I remember my heart? Quite a lot. I was a tiny little tot, 3, 4, 5.

Thanks for the good you gave me daddy.

If anybody reads this post and has ever heard of this poem by Keats, let me know, will ya? Thanks.

Peace