Chasidut zu Schemot 24:9

The holy talmudic sages saw that the prophets had ceased and the world and nation ‘descended appallingly’. ²⁶⁷Lamentations 1:9. The Torah remained closed in Asiyah to the people, and they were as distant from the soul of the Torah as one can be from his own soul, though it indeed is in him, because his body encases it. Though the Torah and commandments descended with them, and in this world, they fulfill the commandments—of the festival booths [sukkah] and fringes [tzitzit] etc. —but the prophecy, that is the revelation that all is holy including Asiyah, was no longer. Thus, these holy ones worked mightily and held fast unto God, and drew the light of prophecy inhering in the Torah to the world and the nation which had descended. Though they were unable to reveal the divine light in the depths of Asiyah, so that this light would be apparent in even a bush and other physical entities, and so that one might even with his depths, his senses and eyes see an angel of God—‘behold the God of Israel sitting, sapphire beneath His feet’²⁶⁸See Exodus 24:9-11.—hearing the voice of God with his [very] ears—nonetheless, he would now be able to receive and grasp the light of God with the Yetzirah and Beriyah within him.