Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught that there is a reason why Torah scholars so often oppose the true tzaddik (a righteous person)im (the righteous). It is not a flaw in the system. It is the system working exactly as God intended.
There are two spiritual archetypes: Jacob and Laban. Jacob is the tzaddik who studies Torah lishmah (לשמה), purely for its own sake. The good he creates is hidden and stored away for the future. This is why he is called Ya'akov (יעקב), from the word akev (עקב), "heel" and "end." His reward comes at the end.
Laban is the scholar-demon. He studies Torah to show off, to criticize, to accumulate intellectual prestige. Of such a person the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) says bluntly: "A carcass is better than he" (Vayikra Rabbah 1:15). He acquires cunning from his studies and uses it to persecute the righteous.
The divine Presence, the Shechinah (שכינה), resides between two tzaddikim (Zohar I:153b): the upper tzaddik who originally creates the Torah insight, and the lower tzaddik who studies it with purity. The Oral Torah is the Shechinah, as the Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar teaches: "Malkhut (Sovereignty) is the mouth; she is called the Oral Torah." When the Oral Torah falls into the hands of the scholar-demon, the Shechinah is in exile. From that captured holiness, the scholar gains the power to "speak arrogant words, proudly and contemptuously, against the righteous" (Psalms 31:19).
But when a person studies a legal teaching that a Tanna originated, with holiness and purity, something remarkable happens. The breath of the student meets the breath of the ancient sage. Spirit binds with spirit. This is the mystical concept of neshikin (נשיקין), spiritual kisses. The silence between the words of Torah is where God is found, because in that silence, the living spirit of the sage and the living spirit of the student touch.