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What Is the Shekhinah?

What Is the Shekhinah?

Starting explanation, not independently reviewed

The current answer

God's nearness given a name: how a rabbinic word for the divine presence became Kabbalah's feminine face of God, the exiled bride the commandments exist to bring home.

What remains uncertain

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Claims & evidence

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The Shekhinah (from the Hebrew shakhan, "to dwell") is Judaism's name for God's indwelling presence: God insofar as God is near, in the Temple, in Torah study, in exile alongside Israel.

Imported citation, not independently checked: Mishnah Avot 3:2; Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 29a

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Medieval Kabbalah transformed it: in the Zohar the Shekhinah becomes the tenth Sefirah, Malkhut, imaged as feminine, God's bride and Israel's mother.

Imported citation, not independently checked: Zohar; I. Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar

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The Bible uses the verb of God freely: "let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them" (Exodus 25:8).

Imported citation, not independently checked: Exodus 25:8

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The motif with the longest reach begins in that Talmudic consolation: the Shekhinah goes into exile with Israel (Megillah 29a).

Imported citation, not independently checked: Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 29a

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