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Isaac Loeb Peretz – The Cabbalists [translated by A S Rappaport] from Bontshe the Silent

There are melodies which require words. That is the lowest degree. There is also a higher degree, it is a melody that requires no words, it is sung without words – as a pure melody.

But even this melody requires a voice and lips to express itself. And the lips, you understand me, are appertaining to matter. The voice itself, though a nobler and higher form of matter, is still material in its essence. We may say that the voice is standing on the border-line between matter and spirit. Anyhow the melody which is still dependent upon voice and lips is not yet pure, not yet entirely pure, not real spirit.

The true, highest melody however is that which is sung without any voice. It resounds in the interior of man, is vibrating in his heart and in all his limbs.

And that is how we are to understand the words of King David, when he says in his Psalms ‘All my bones are praising the Lord’.

The melody should vibrate in the marrow of our bones, and such is the most beautiful song of praise ………. For such a melody has not been invented by a being of flesh and blood; it is a portion of that melody with which the Lord once created the Universe, it is a part of the soul which He has breathed into His creation.