His son Mendel of Vorki, on the other hand, gave direct and forceful expression to the crisis, not so much in one or the other of his sayings, as through his silence. The variations handed down to us on the theme of his "silence" form a curious picture. With him silence is not a rite, as with the Quakers, nor is it ascetic practice, as with some Hindu sects. The rabbi of Kotzk called it an "art". Silence was his way. It was not based on a negative principle; nor was it merely the absence of speech. It was positive and had a positive effect. Mendel's silence was a shell filled with invisible essence, and those who were with him breathed it. [...]
But it was not only that. When he himself spoke of silence—though not of his own, which he never touched on directly—he did not interpret it as soundless prayer but as soundless weeping or as "a soundless scream". The soundless scream is a reaction to a great sorrow. [...] By reading between the lines we discover that it is particularly his, Mendel of Vorki's reaction to the hour in which "the present is too corrupted". The time for words is past. It has become late.
— Martin Buber, from his introduction to his Tales of the Hasidim, trans. Olga Marx