I understand that the shechinah, the presence of God, is a feminine word. What is the Jewish stance on shechinah? Rather, how does it involve itself in Jewish tradition and life?
Thanks mate! You and Kan are extremely beneficial resources!
I should be thanking you. This gives me the opportunity to brush up on my faith.
The Shekhinah is the Divine Presence. It is how God manifests His presence in this world. We learn this from Exodus 25:8: “Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell [veshakhanti] in their midst”.
This conception of Hashem took on greater importance in the mystical (Kabbalistic) literature. Kabbalah teaches that the Shekinah is the 10th of the Sefirot – manifestations of God. IT is the Kabbalah that focuses on the feminine aspects of the Shekhinah.
There’s a fundamental belief in Judaism that Hashem participates in the sufferings of Israel. This concept of divine pathos shapes the hearts of the prophet, making him one who empathizes with the divine pathos. So we have the rabbis saying things like: “The Shekhinah descended into exile with the [Israel].”
Rabbi Elizer (2nd century CE?) said: "Why did the Hashem, in revealing HImself from the highest heavens, speak to Moses out of the thornbush? Because just as the thornbush is the lowliest of all the trees in the world, so the people Israel had sunk to the lowest level of degradation and Hashem descended with them and redeemed them, as it is written, "I have come down to rescue them from the Egyptians’ (Exodus 3:8)
Later sages understood the phrase “The Shekhinah descended with them” as saying that it shared their lot. In other words it is an expression of Hashem’s empathy for His people.
But Rabbi Akiva – one of the greatest of rabbis, took this concept a step further. He said it was not merely empathy. He said that the pain God feels when Israel suffers is that of total identification, something that touches God’s very essence. He taught that the inflictions of Israel inflict wounds on God.
This was a very daring and dangerous concept and was and still is not universally accepted by Jews. (Akiva had a rival, Rabbi Ishmael. The schools of Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva often differed on how one was to view interpret the scripture). And for much the same reason that the Christian concept of Jesus is problematic. That is, to say God suffers with His people is to open the door for the argument that God is not omnipotent.
Akiva addressed this somewhat obliquely as follows:
“They have spoken falsehood [or plotted treason] against me (Hosea 7:13) - " Now has falsehood been spoken against the Holy and Blessed One?” Akiva expounded: They have said, was it for our sake that God was concerned with our redemption? He was concerned with Himself! God redeemed Himself, not us, for it was said: 'whom have you redeemed for yourself from Egypt, a people and
it’s God.
What is going on with this explanation is as follows: Akiva wants to assert that God makes Himself vunerable by participating in Israel’s suffering and redemption. Having stated that, Akiva has to then defend against the charge that in that vunerability, God’s primary concern in Exodus was to save Himself. This is similar to the christian problem of teaching of Jesus’ humanity and suffering on the cross: How can the person of God be humanized to facilitate empathic identification, without either jeopardizing divine omnipotence or, worse, inviting a sense of moral weakness to enter the divine description).
I can write more but all this gives you hopefully a taste of what the role of the Shekhinah plays in Judaism.
I have shameless borrowed and quoted form A.J.'s Heshel’s “Heavenly Torah” in responding to your question.
I could go on in greater detail but I probably already said more than is easily understood.****
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