SOURCE: "Nelly Sachs and the Dance of Language," in Bridging the Abyss: Reflections on Jewish Suffering, Anti-Semitism, and Exile, edited by Strenger and Amy Colin, Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1994, pp. 225-36.

In the following essay, Strenger examines Sachs's use of the body as a symbol in her work.

The Hasidic tales collected by Martin Buber constituted part of Nelly Sachs's initial significant intellectual and poetic contact with Jewish culture. The following anecdote, entitled "Silence and Speech," evokes the historical reasons Sachs had for maintaining the struggle for her poetic voice, at first as the memorializer, then as the singer, of her people:

A man had taken upon himself the discipline of silence and for three years had spoken no words save those of the Torah and of prayer. Finally the Yehudi sent for him. "Young man," he said, "how is it that I do not see a single word...