Moses Sustained by the Bread and Water of Torah for Forty Days

"And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights" (Exodus 34:28). Is it possible for a person to go forty days without eating and drinking? Angels descended to Abraham and ate; Moses ascended to the upper realms, saw that there is no eating and drinking there, and so he did not eat and did not drink (this is written at the end of "And these are the ordinances"). "He did not eat bread" — he ate from the bread of the Torah. "And he drank no water" — he drank from the waters of the Torah, as it is said, "Come, eat of my bread" (Proverbs 9:5), and it says, "Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters" (Isaiah 55:1). He would learn Torah by day and review it by himself at night. Why? Only to teach Israel that they should labor in the Torah by day and by night. And from where was he nourished all those forty days? From the radiance of the Divine Presence [Shekhinah]. "Forty days and forty nights" — but is it not written, "and the light dwells with Him" (Daniel 2:22), and "the brightness shall be as the light," and "even the darkness does not darken before You" (Psalms 139:12)? From where, then, did Moses know when it was day and when it was night? Rather, at the hour when the Holy One, blessed be He, taught him Scripture, he knew it was day, and at the hour when He taught him Mishnah, he knew it was night.