זוהר ויקרא — דף כט ע”ב

Thus the disciples of the sages, children of the King and the Queen, are called sabbaths and festivals, and possess nothing of their own, for they are not laborers like the other servants, children of ordinary affairs; their reward, in this world and in the world to come, is to be delighted with every kind of food and drink and honored with fine garments like Shabbat, of which it is said "honor it with clean clothing." Whatever is done for sabbaths and festivals should be done for them.<br />
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One who desecrates Shabbat is liable to stoning; so too one who makes use of a fading crown, and one who treats disrespectfully someone who teaches halachot thereby desecrates his own Torah; all the more so one who disgraces him, as though disgracing sabbaths and festivals — the masters of the Mishnah already said: whoever disgraces the festivals is as though denying a fundamental principle. And just as all the vessels of the Temple are called holy, so all who serve the disciples of the sages are called holy, and the disciples of the master — who correspond to the limbs of the body — are called holy of holies; the secret of the matter is hinted in "the curtain shall divide for you between the holy and the holy of holies." And Metatron, you and your camps must offer an offering before the Lord every night.<br />
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The deed — accepting upon oneself the yoke of the kingdom of heaven — is the acceptance of the sufferings of poverty for the Torah scholar, which is a death to the body of his "animals"; for the nourishment of the Torah is the nourishment of the intellectual soul, spirit, and breath — kohen, levite, and Israelite, corresponding to the letters of the divine Name; and the Torah itself is Adam — "this is the Torah: man" — which includes the Explicit Name, and which is man's nourishment in its four aspects, corresponding to the nourishment of animals — bread, wine, meat, and fruit — "God made one opposite the other."<br />
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And a person must offer before the Lord every night the sacrifice of the breath, spirit, and soul of the "animals" within him, confess through various confessions and raise them in thought as an offering during the recitation of the Shema, directing his intention toward a figurative slaughter, resembling the pinching of a bird's nape; and these three deaths resemble the three biles — red, green, and black — which are in the liver, the gallbladder, and the spleen, like the three shells of a nut. And before this, a person must set up a "stone altar" and intend to perform a "stoning" from the white bile that rules the wings of the lung, in those adhesions that hold the "animals" within him; then a sky-blue fire descends and consumes them, and the beasts, animals, and birds within him become pure to draw near to the Lord and for His Name to rest upon them; then there is fulfilled in him "and you who cling to the Lord your God are alive," and he becomes like a horse that his master rides — "for you ride upon your horses, your chariots are salvation" — and at that time "the Lord saves man and beast."<br />
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The Torah scholar is equivalent to all masters of Torah, and so he must weigh himself: from the side of Torah, and from the side of the limbs of the body — for all the peoples of the earth — as the masters of the Mishnah explained: "a person should always regard himself as though the whole world depended on him." And let him direct his soul, spirit, and breath to make these into offerings together with all the inhabitants of the world, and the Holy One, blessed be He, joins good thought to deed; and by this "the Lord saves man and beast." All the Tannaim and Amoraim rose and said together with one voice: you are the Faithful Shepherd, who has the authority to do all this, for you are equivalent to all of Israel, and therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, sent you among them. (Here ends the Ra'aya Meheimna.)<br />
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Tosefta: "This is the law of the burnt offering" — Rabbi Chiya said: we explained this verse thus: "this is the law" — this is the Assembly of Israel; "the burnt offering" (ha'olah) — this is the evil thought that rises (ola) in man's will to divert him from the path of truth; it itself is the one that rises to accuse man and wishes to burn him in fire so that no room be left for it to accuse him. Therefore "on the altar all night" — who is "the night"? This is the Assembly of Israel, who is "this," coming to purify man from that will.