was always that one should be involved in Torah in order to bond our souls in the essence and spirituality and holiness of the source of the giver of the Torah... And if one is involved in Torah study with this intention, one becomes a Merkavah and Heichal for the Shekhinah may he be blessed, so that the Shekhinah is literally within them, because they are a Heichal to God and within them literally the Shekhinah establishes its dwelling place." Chaim of Volozhin "If someone sanctifies himself properly through the performance of all the Mitzvot...Then he himself is the Beit HaMikdash itself...Because this is the truth regarding Tzadikim through the deeds which are desirable by the blessed one they are the Mikdash mamash" Moshe Chaim Luzzatto: "The holy one who cleaves constantly to God and his soul fires up with true intellectual understanding with great love of his creator and fear...Behold a person like this, he himself, is considered to be like the Tabernacle Beit HaMikdash and the Mizbeiach...And also it is said regarding Tzadikim they are the Markavah, because the Shekhinah dwells in them just like it dwelled in the Beit HaMikdash." Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler: "And this thing is so much certain to one that thinks in depth about it, until it is impossible to understand how someone can argue on it, and so was already mentioned in the words of many of the great scholars like the Ramchal and others, that the image of Tzadikim is Hashem may He be blessed, Himself, and they are the same." In 1951, the seventh Rebbe of Chabad, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, made a similar statement regarding the practice by Hasidic Jews to have a rabbi act as an intermediary with God on their behalf. He explained, "The Rebbe is completely connected with his Hasidim, not like two separate things that connect; rather, they become completely one. And the Rebbe is not an intermediary which separates, but one that connects. Therefore by a Hassid, he with the Rebbe with God are all one ... Hence, it is not possible to ask any questions about [how it is possible to turn to the Rebbe as] an intermediary [for the purpose of asking him to pray to Hashem on one’s behalf], since this is Atzmus uMehus [God's Essence] itself as it put itself in a body. This is similar to the statement of the Zohar,