In Jewish mythos, Torah is a truly supernal entity. It is one of the seven primordial things that pre-dates creation. God used the celestial Torah as a blueprint for ordering His universe. According to Midrash Konen, God drew three drops of water and three drops of fire from the supernal Torah kept in heaven and from them God made the world (2:24). The Medieval German Pietists identified Torah as "the footstool of God," conflating it with God's Glory and the Shekhina. Torah is, in these terms, is nothing less than the physical manifestation of divinity, a kind of "God In-scripted," as it were. To be constantly engaged in its study is the highest form of worship known to Judaism. Zohar teaches that the Torah we have on earth, the Torah of laws, stories and theology, is only the "garments of Torah," for material beings could not survive an encounter with the unshielded Torah. The true Torah, the soul of the Torah, exists in heaven as black fire written on white fire.
The earthly Torah, however, is still very powerful. Its words have extraordinary, at times quasi-magical, powers. And the Torah scroll itself is talismanic. King David wore a miniature Torah strapped to his right arm in combat and won every battle, thus illustrating that the Torah makes a dandy amulet in the right hands (or arms) (Legend based on Ps. 16:8). Both the words of Torah and the physical object of the Torah scroll have atropopaic properties.