Abraham’s laughter, through which he communed with others, was a “pseudo-language,” in which “silence is the essence.” Now this essence is explored to its full, almost intolerable, extent. To live in a world in which the essential is experienced implicitly, wordlessly, is to return to the base out of which laughter, feeding, and ultimately speech emerged. -Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire (p. 172)