Musar do Psalmów 19:9

And there is another type of love that comes from the side of intellect, and it is called “love of the sublime”. For he who has a good mind, who knows the virtue of a perfect man and whose heart desires perfection, loves the perfect man for his perfection with a strong love. And all the more so should one love the Creator, blessed be He, who is the true perfection in all types of perfections in the ultimate perfection. But this love is not possible except for [those who are in some way] similar [to G-d], [i.e.] for those who desire good and walk in the path of goodness. And therefore, the more a person occupies himself with Torah and keeping His commandments, may He be blessed, that He, may He be blessed, established, because “the precepts of Hashem are upright” (Psalms 19:9), and walks in His paths, may He be blessed, will multiply his love for Him due to His perfection. And all whose hands grow weak from the Torah and from the commandments will turn back from the love of the Creator, as he has no similarity to the Creator, and further since his sins are themselves a dividing wall between him and his father in heaven. And [these sins] are the accusers and adversaries who confuse him with many thoughts until he will not remember, or will be unable to continuously maintain, his thoughts of love of the Creator.

The simple understanding of the verse is that the commandment is like a lamp to give off light in front of you, as it is written, the commandment of the Lord is lucid, making the eyes light up (Psalms 19:9); w,hereas Torah is a light to those that study it, while a fool walks in darkness [alluding to Ecclesiastes 2:14]. But behold there are two understandings of a lamp and a light. The first is that a single lamp is called a lamp, whereas a light is a big torch. And this agrees with what the sages, may their memory be blessed, gathered about and decided (Kiddushin 40b), "The study of Torah is greater, as it leads to action." It called a commandment, which is an action, a lamp; and the Torah, which is study, a light. A second understanding is that in the lamp itself, the light is connected to the lamp. For the lamp is the receptacle of the light, meaning the candle or the wick in the oil in a vessel, and the light holds on to it. So they cling to one another and need one another. For the light of the lamp does not have anything to hold on to without the lamp, since the existence of the light, without something to hold onto, returns to its original source [and becomes latent]. The lamp also does not have any luminescence without the light that holds onto it.

And there are some who rationalize thus: "What good will it do him to be a [Torah] learner? Is he gong to be a Rabbi?" (the implication being that if he is not going to be a Rabbi, a Jew need not know how to serve the L-rd, G-d forbid!) Let there not be such in Israel. Are we not familiar with the verse (Psalms 19:9): "The mitzvah of the L-rd is clear, enlightening the eyes," which is understood to mean that a man, without Torah to guide him, is like a blind man, walking by himself on a road full of pits, whose danger is extremely great, and whose failure is certainly nearer than his escape. So, exactly, is a man devoid of Torah. Not only will he be lacking many hundreds of mitzvoth because of this [ignorance of Torah], not knowing at all if what he is doing is a mitzvah or not, but he will commit in their stead many hundreds of transgressions which he thought to be mitzvoth. And, even more, the mitzvoth that will remain with him, aside from most of them being performed without joy, without love, and without fear, will themselves be imperfect and defective, for he will not know how to perform them according to the din.