Why is it written, “Her ways are ways of pleasantness” (Prov. 3-17)? [R. Eleazar] said to [R. Hiyya]- How foolish are people of the world, for they do not know how to consider words of Torah, for the words of Torah are the way to merit that pleasantness of God, as it is written, “Her ways are ways of pleasantness.” The ways of pleasantness (no’am) indeed! What is this pleasantness? As it is written, “To gaze upon the beauty (no’am) of the Lord.” It has been taught that the Torah and its ways derive from that Beauty. . . Thus, it is written, “Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths peaceful.”

Translated by Elliot Wolfson in- “Beautiful Maiden Without Eyes- Peshat and Sod in Zoharic Hermeneutics.” In The Midrashic imagination – Jewish exegesis, thought, and history. Edited by Michael Fishbane, Albany – State University of New York Press, 1993, pp. 155-203.