127. Parrot

I stopped the CD after the first few lines and sang back exactly what he sang, and then pressed rewind and did it again. And again and again. I went through all the tracks on the CD this way, surveying and parroting the beginning of each prayer of Shaharit, the morning service. Then I put on the next CD, the second morning of the holiday. This time the chazzan was a woman, and she sounded much like myself. Since we shared the same, higher register, I found it easier to follow her voice than the cantor's, although the key hadn't changed--and was just a little too high. I sang along with the first few lines of each track on this disc as well, the same exact prayers as on the other one.

Then I popped in the third CD, Yom Kippur morning, which featured the cantor and a handful of rabbis. I began to listen, but it was just too weird to hear "Al chet," the breast-beating litany of the year's sins, in the middle of July. I decided to revisit this section in a week or two.

I looked at the clock. Three hours had passed as if in a blink.