Once on the Days of Trembling, the holy Kabbalist Isaac Luria heard the Bat Kol (Voice of God). The voice said that, no matter how great Isaac's prayerful zeal was, in the neighboring city there was a man who surpassed even him in the art of prayer. Luria, without hesitation, went to that city and found the one about whom he had been told.
“I’ve heard amazing things about you,” said Luria. -Are you a scientist? Are you studying Torah?
“No,” the man answered, “I didn’t have the opportunity to study.”
“You must be a master of Psalms, a genius of worship, putting extraordinary power into prayer.”
- No. Of course, I have heard the Psalms many times, but I don’t know any of them by heart.
“And yet,” exclaimed Luria, “I know that your prayer surpasses even mine in its power.” What did you do in the Days of Awe to deserve such praise?
“Rabbi,” he heard in response, “I am illiterate.” Of the twenty-two letters of the Aleph Beis (alphabet), I only know ten. When I entered the synagogue and saw fellow believers passionately indulging in prayer, my heart almost burst in my chest. But I don’t know a single prayer. And then I said: “Ribono shel Olam (Lord of the Universe)! Aleph, beis, gimel, dalet, he, vav, zayn, het, tet, yod - these are all the letters that I know. Unite them at Your discretion, may they bring You joy.” Then I simply began to repeat these letters over and over again, and then God, I hope, will form the necessary words from them.
Commentary by Rami Shapiro The repetition of random sounds, such as the babble of a child, the vocal improvisations of a jazz singer, or the nigunim (wordless chant) of a Hasid, can lead us to a world beyond words and the limited mental constructs associated with them. Repeating sounds again and again, simply giving them your voice, without burdening them with frozen generally accepted meanings, means moving from the map to the territory, from the thought of God to God Himself. But such repetition cannot be turned into a technique. You should realize that there is no technology. It is necessary, like the hero of our story, to become spiritually illiterate. Just bring the sounds to God as they are and let Him do the rest. Everything else is nothing more than an attempt to control the territory itself by manipulating the map.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru