זוהר ויקרא — דף כח ע”ב

So it is with the guilt offering: Israel is held by the wings of the Shechinah, which are the "chayot" of the Throne, so that the merits of Israel should not rise to the Holy One, blessed be He; these wings are held back and weighed down by their sins. And the guilt offering — "mother" of the mixed multitude — is the adhesion attached to the Throne, the seat of the Mistress, and it does not let her rise out of exile; the merits cling to her to raise her up, but she remains in the air like an adhesion suspended in the air — this is the middle pillar (which is air); so the suspended guilt offering rests upon the righteous one, held between heaven and earth.<br />
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The sin offering is the lobe of the liver, which grows heavy with the sins of Israel, just as the liver grows heavy with the dregs of blood upon the arteries of the heart; so these sins weigh down the wings of the Shechinah, which are the positive commandments, resembling the wings of a dove; and when the negative commandments outweigh the positive ones — that is, when Israel's sins exceed their merits — it is said of the Torah, which is a body (Daniel 8), "and truth was cast down to the ground," and she cries out (Lamentations 1), "the Lord has delivered me into hands I cannot withstand," (Amos 5), "she has fallen, she shall rise no more."<br />
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For this reason the Tannaim and Amoraim instituted prayers in place of offerings, to remove sins and guilt through them; the morning prayer corresponds to the continual morning offering, the afternoon prayer to the evening offering, and the evening prayer to the limbs and fats that were consumed all night. And the three patriarchs, for whom three prayers were instituted, correspond to the Chariot to which they are bound, for the patriarchs are themselves the Chariot. (Here ends the Ra'aya Meheimna.)<br />
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"A perpetual fire shall burn on the altar; it shall not go out." Rabbi Chiya opened with (Genesis 22), "And Isaac said to Abraham his father, and he said, My father, and he said, Here I am, my son" — three times "he said" from Isaac, and one "he said" from Abraham. Why is this so? Because three of the acts of creation belong to Isaac, and one to Abraham — the fourth, as in "here I am, my son," corresponding to "let there be lights" (written defectively, without the vav).<br />
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And should you say that the instances of "he said, he said" are more numerous — it is because those were hidden in thought, while these were revealed out of darkness: "Isaac said to Abraham" corresponds to "God said, let there be light, and there was light"; "he said, my father" corresponds to "God said, let there be a firmament"; "he said, behold the fire" corresponds to "God said, let the waters be gathered"; "he said, here I am" corresponds to "God said, let there be lights."<br />
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And further, "a perpetual fire shall burn on the altar" — this is the Torah, of which it is said (Jeremiah 23), "Is not My word like fire, says the Lord?" "It shall not go out," surely, for transgression does not extinguish the Torah; but transgression extinguishes a commandment, which is a lamp, and one who commits a transgression that extinguishes a commandment thereby extinguishes his own lamp, as in "the lamp of the Lord is the soul of man"; and so one who removes the Shechinah from its place causes extinguishing and darkness to that place, and darkness is transgression.<br />
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The fulfillment of a commandment by the common person (am ha'aretz) is extinguished for them, fulfilling in them "the wicked shall be silenced in darkness"; but for people of Torah there is never any extinguishing, for it is illuminated for them through several secrets of the Torah, where light is called "raz" (secret); and the commandments of the Torah that the sages fulfill are Torah to them, "day and night it shall not go out upon them," for they fulfill "you shall meditate on it day and night."<br />
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And the smoke that rises from their mouths in words of Torah is the smoke of the wood-arrangement that is ordered and prepared for its husband, as in "when you light the lamps... to light a perpetual lamp"; and through the smoke of the arrangement and the cloud of incense — for the Torah is its smoke — there awakens from the heart to Wisdom, which is like the brain, like the cloud; for the arousal of the cloud comes from the heart, as in "a mist went up from the earth" and afterward "watered the whole face of the ground." So too smoke awakens from Understanding (Binah), which is in the heart (as in "the heart understands"), and rises to Wisdom, which is like the brain; and what is the smoke? This is the middle pillar — Knowledge (Da'at) — "a heart that understands knowledge."