On the surface, silence was simple: we didn't speak unless it was necessary. But what was the point of silence? The point was, we learned, not mere silence, not silence to preserve some sort of order, but something much greater. In silence the idea was to recollect ourselves, to place ourselves more squarely in the presence of God than we would if people were talking to us all the time. We could pray, we could meditate, we could contemplate.
All of God's creatures have divine knowledge
within, even the tiniest ant, and we're all
trying to get in step and march to the Divine
Music.
~ from TALES OF THE HASIDIM by Martin Buber