The Gemara brings down that Hillel had a certain number of disciples. The greatest was Yonatan ben Uziel. The least was R Yohanan ben Zazai. And it goes on to list the great qualities that R. Yohanan ben Zacai possessed. "He knew the speech of the birds,.. and even ... and the great thing and the small thing." [דבר גדול ודבר קטן]." Then the Gemara asks what is "the great thing"? The work of the Divine Chariot and the work of Creation. What is the "small thing"? The discussion of Abyee and Rava. [And that later is a major content of the two Talmuds.]
In The Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides [the Rambam] explains the "Work of Creation" is what was known to the ancient Greeks as "Physics" and the "Work of the Divine Chariot" is what was known to the ancient Greeks as "Metaphysics."
[So neither refers to any kind of mysticism.]
So, we learn that there is some aspect of these two disciplines that help to bring a person to human perfection more readily than learning Gemara. That is not however meant to diminish the importance of learning Gemara. Rather that Gemara is the first step up the ladder. [The Rambam states this clearly at the end of the first four chapters of the Mishna Torah. That is,-- even though Physics and Metaphysics are greater, still one first must learn "the forbidden and the allowed."
[The way I see this is that there is an area of value in Gemara ("numinous value"),-- but that area of value can easily be subverted. For an example the more powerful an energy source, the more careful one has to be. A mistake in handling an electric battery would not cause the same kind of damage as the mishandling of a nuclear reactor. And since Gemara and learning Torah is in this area of numinous value, a mishandling of it, causes untold damage. We can see this clearly in the religious world. Something is clearly off there.
[Rav Nahman of Breslov says [LeM II:91] the importance of combing the wisdom of Torah with the lower wisdoms of this world and by that all the judgments are sweetened.]
