ABSTRACT
In the I.C.U. on the first or second day, I began to be aware that I was hearing and listening to singing outside my hospital room. At first it was automatic and I was mostly not aware that I was listening, but gradually I began to attend to it more and more. Where I first thought it was sporadic, I soon became conscious of the fact that whenever I listened actively, it was there. My immediate thought was that there is a Rabbi in a school out there, and he seems pretty busy. The voice was sonorous, deep, slow, a chanting, “dovening” (praying) rhythm, which I began to interpret as a head Rabbi teaching others to become and sing like Rabbis. At first my thoughts were fleeting. When I still heard it at night, and even very late as I was trying to sleep, and remembered that this singing had been continuous even during the day, I thought the Rabbi and his students were certainly conscientious and persistent. They must also work late.
