Therefore the Torah is called by this name for it instructs [us] about the pattern of the Holy One, blessed be He… the Torah, as it were, is the shadow of the Holy One, blessed be He … and inasmuch as the Torah is the form of God He commanded us to study it so that we may know the pattern of the upper form. As some kabbalists said concerning the verse, “Cursed be he who does not raise up the words of this Torah” (Deut. 27-26), is there a Torah that falls? This is rather a warning to the cantor to show the writing of the Torah scroll to the community so that they will see the pattern of the upper form. How much more so [is it incumbent] to study the Torah so that one may see the supernal mysteries and see the actual glory of the Holy One, blessed be He. All the time that one studies the Torah one is actually sitting in the shadow of the Holy One, blessed be He.

Translated by Elliot Wolfson in Through a Speculum that Shines- Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism, Princeton- Princeton University Press, 1994.