The essence of Torah is to learn, to know, to become familiar with Divine attributes, concepts and ideas and to walk in G-d's ways, to cling to Him. Ritual observance is only the external expression of the internal idea. It is the conceptual framework which stands at the heart of Torah, determining the path one must follow. When a person does not understand a mitzvah and the idea behind it, or worse, he has internalized alien, distorted concepts and attributes, then when he fulfills the mitzvah, the external form of devotion, he is only emphasizing an idea that is fallacious, or, G-d forbid, that contradicts G-d's eternal truth. He "is not blessing G-d, but cursing Him" (see Bava Kama 94a).
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The exile continued until we were smitten with the very hardest blow of all. Gradually, the accuracy and completeness of the Torah has been undermined. Strange idols have entered the Temple and as a result of this, and for many other reasons, internal and external, the Jews have embraced distorted ideas, until today many individuals, good and bad alike, claim that their perverse values are "the Torah Moses placed before the Children of Israel."
(From Or HaRa'ayon - English translation - chapter 5)
