Shekhinah in Kabbalah: Feminine Element in Divinity
From Gershom Scholem’s On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead: Basic Concepts in the Kabbalah
Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah, the person of the Shekhinah is viewed “as the personification and hypostatis of God’s indwelling presence in the world—a concept that has intimately accompanied the Jewish people for some two thousand years, through all phases of its turbulent history and tragic existence.” (141) Scholem’s introduction of the chapter with comments about ancient and modern Jewish biblical scholarship, remarking on the Babylonian exile, which reminds me of the very present need of the Jewish people to be spiritually accompanied by God—most fittingly in the presence of a mother-figure, Shekhinah. Kabbalah seems to have evoked the composition of the Shekhinah out of biblical/apocryphal feminine personifications and “hypostases of divine forces and qualities that are not merely literary personifications or poetic metaphors.” (141) Scholem speculates that concrete female images may derive their substance out of Ancient Near Eastern Mythologies, though he chooses to remain closer to biblical figures: “may of the statements made about biblical ‘Wisdom’ (Hokhmah in Heb.) and alleged mythical background strike me as highly hypothetical and tenuous.” Undoubtedly, Lady Wisdom is one of these “hypostases of forces,” though Scholem does not necessarily see “them (as many people do) as aspects of the Godhead itself.” (142) Wisdom presents some comprehension difficulty, because she is “a hypostasis bearing divine character.” (142)
Scholem clarifies, however, that “Wisdom always quite clearly remains the first of the created beings; it may be older than all visible Creation, but, however ancient, it is always thought of as younger than God and never as coeternal with Him,” (142) at least in Jewish thought. Though Wisdom participated with God in visible creation (Prov. 8.22-3), Scholem recounts, it is “hardly an aspect of God, much less His spouse.” (142) Wisdom as one with God in the sense of sameness is debunked, regardless of the abundant goddess mythical religions that enthrone Wisdom-like figures with/in God. Even “from a psychological point of view,” Scholem offers further convincing proof, “it seems unlikely that we would find here the rebirth or reemergence of that mythical character whose rejection was such a central event in the world of biblical religion.” (142-3) Judiasm remains unwavering, even in its blurred religious form of mysticism, as a monotheism with a male-depicted God-spirit. Yet Wisdom has a unique connection with this male God in her female depiction.
Scholem points out from apocryphal literature, the Wisdom of Solomon (Book of Wisdom), “reference is made to Wisdom’s ‘symbiosis’ with God… not only in the generalized sense of intimacy, but in the clear sense of shared conjugal life.” (143) Linguistics account for the gender of Wisdom’s personification, Scholem further clarifies, removing such citation from “proof of the female character of the figure itself.” (143) Pre-Philo of Alexandria, Wisdom was ambiguous in Jewish thought, neither necessarily male nor necessarily female. Philo of Alexandria introduced a purely female Wisdom of figure, introducing the picture of a “sacred marriage” (144), unique in Jewish tradition, drawing a picture “of the Father and Mother creating the universe” out of Philo’s own personal interpretation of the text. My, how opinion can alter the original fabric of tradition, theology, belief, and resulting practice! My intent at observing the Jewish integration of feminine into formerly monotheistic maleness is to trace any feasible lines and connections into Christianity’s need for woman figure near and close to the heart of God (Mother Mary, the feminine Spirit, etc…). Scholem finds fault with Philo’s interpretation of Yhwh’s “marriage to a Mother Wisdom, who constantly renews the mystery of her virginity… at once both a virgin bride and mother (a highly significant image). Wisdom likewise appears as God’s daughter, in an image fusing allegory and archetypes in an interpretation of the biblical name Bethuel: ‘because she is the true daughter [i.e., of God] (bath el) and eternally virginal (bethulah).’” (144) This type of language bears great similarity to that used in Christian tradition of the Virgin Mary (according to Catholic tradition).
A Christian scholar pursuing the roots of Kabbalah and Jewish feminism, and even the Jewish scholar, must realize that after Jesus Christ entered the scene and drove a further tradition from the presence of Moses, there was a compromise in traditional Judaism to explain and conform to some aspects of Christianity (Christians do not seem so mindful, but perhaps there is some change in Christian tradition to accommodate Judaism beyond the early apostolic conflicts within the church). The Catholic Faith might easily transpose this language of the figure of Lady Wisdom onto the Virgin Mother Mary—the question is, which tradition informed the other, and which adapted to include the other?
Returning to Scholem’s discussion of the Shekhinah, he notes that there are “male aspects within the female character of Wisdom…” which will “recur in the Shekhinah. Thus in her original state, Scholem has set forth that the figure of wisdom cannot be one with God (merely His first creation) and not exclusively feminine from a linguistic perspective. Yet Wisdom is not the only female figure to be combined with the image of the Shekhinah, for there is also Rachel, figured as maternal/daugherly Zion depending on her context, whether daughter of Yhwh or Mother of Israel. Zion, sometimes called Jerusalem, is found in both heavenly and earthly spheres, but its never identified as Yhwh Himself. In the same language, Scholem points out that another common Jewish concept, Kenessth Yisra’el or “the Community of Israel” is also embodied in the female, far more prevalently than Zion. Scholem explains that the Community of Israel
personifies the collectivity of the nation as a religious figure; it appears in any number of rabbinic statements in the Talmud and the midrash as an active, speaking figure, a spiritual entity having real existence in the sacral and historical sphere. (145)
Scholem Himself finds ease in which Christianity might have adapted the Jewish communal language of synagogue into the female personification of Church.
This Christian adaptation of Jewish symbolic figuration continues, Scholem claims, in allegorical readings of the Song of Songs, where the Community of Israel is read as the bride of Yhwh. Interestingly enough, Scholem points out the real mystery of Song of Songs:
The realm of God never mingles with the realm of Kenesseth Yisra’el in which He acts and which is subject to Him. The abyss between the bride and bridegroom is never bridged, and any sexual imagery that might suggest otherwise is meticulously avoided. (146)
Thus remains a constant and perpetual longing of the bride to find and reach her bridegroom within the Song of Songs. All the female images of Judaism, Scholem states, allow for a development of Gnosticism in Christian theology, “able to nourish an old-new level in the perception of the divine.” (146) Scholem acknowledges that this historical process in which these female images “rebelled,” Kabbalah too was swept up in the abundance of new forms to mystically access God through feminine imagery.
Returning to dialog on the Shekhiah, while Scholem recounts that images of Wisdom, the Community of Israel, Zion and Jerusalem were earth-bound personifications, “Shekhinah refers to something that clearly belongs to the divine realm.” (147) While the overt discussion of Shekhinah is not obvious within nonrabbinic and biblical texts, Scholem describes “in the literal sense, God’s dwelling or Shekhinah means His visible or hidden presence in a given place, his immediacy.”(147) But Shekhinah is also free from preternatural manifestations of God, also referring to “the presence of God and the awareness of His presence” (147) whether in thought, feeling, inner knowledge, textual knowledge, etc. Yet still, the Shekhinah “is not perceived as a distinct hypostasis of God Himself,” (147-8) being disassociated with His qualities and characteristics. “Thus,” Scholem concludes, “the Shekhinah is always God Himself insofar as He is present in a specific place or at a specific event.” (148) Scholem quotes George Foot Moore to indicate that the Shekhiah’s hyperbolic imagery for God Himself acts as “’a kind of verbal smokescreen to conceal the difficulty presented by the anthropomorphic language’” in which God reveals Himself (148).
Some might wonder if the Shekhiah’s femininity adds aspects of a feminine mystique to the male personification of God, but Scholem passes over such questions to continue in the function of the verbally female hyperbole of God, Shekhinah. Quoting Rabbi Akiva, Scholem finds the Shekhinah to be an extendable part of God’s own personhood, indivisible from God Himself, but able to be exiled with His people into their Babylonian captivity. A duplicity in the Shekhinah’s fluidity arises in Judaism itself, for Scholem notes disagreement between an all-encompassing presence of the Shekhinah, and the sporadic Talmudic mentioning Shekhinah as a distinct and separable quality of Himself. Jewish theologians agree, however, that Wisdom is not congruent with Shekhinah, but rather similar or kindred to wisdom, with more of God Himself invested in her. Interestingly enough, Scholem explores that possibility that “the utterance of the Shekhinah may have originally been merely a proverbial expression of human feeling of suffering, which God makes his own.” (150) So is this the portion of God that is as present with humans as we allow, yet simultaneously His means of loving us?
The perceiveability of Shekhinah is described as “hidden from human beings in the supernatural heights,” (151) revealed only perhaps in the most heightened states on men’s visions. From Gnostic and mystic writings such as these that betray a belief in the unity of God with the Shekhinah, Scholem probes at the “Gnostic distinction between the hidden essence of God and His revealed image.” (151-2) In medieval Jewish philosophy however, Scholem notes, “the Shekhinah clearly appears as a manifestation of God, quite distinct from God Himself” (154) in order to preserve stanch monotheism. So even if Shekhinah is noted as the glory of God, it evolved into a separate entity from God in order to preserve staunch monotheism. Kabbalah emerged at a later time, developing Shekhinah as a new concept if the Godhead in response to the “philosophical downgrading of the Shekhinah to a created being.” (157)
In the mythical development of Jewish Theology, Yhwh God was understood in conjuncture with Aristotle’s “Unmoved Mover.” Kabblist theology however, “lies in the resolutely dynamic conception of the Godhead: God’s creative power and vitality in develop in an unending movement of His names, which flows not only outward in Creation, but back in itself,” running contradictory to traditional Jewish monotheism. One might say that Kabbalah embraces the dynamic feminine personification of God while traditional Judaism is rooted in the more static, steady male. To unite these two perceptions of Yhwh and remain within orthodox monotheism,
Kabbalists resorted to the expedient of differentiating between two strata of the Godhead: one, its hidden being-in-itself, its immanence in the depths of its own being; and another, that of its creative and active nature, thrusting outward toward expression. (159)
The redefinition of Kabbalists to the identity of Shekhinah introduced a new crucial factor, the status of its female character. This evolution of a female Shekhinah, Scholem states, can be derived either from original conceptions of the Shekhinah as female or a new movement within Jewish Gnosticism to unite the two hypostases of the Shekhinah and the Community of Israel.
Identifying the transfused concept of Shekhinah/Community of Israel with then Godhead resulted with the people of Israel composing the matter/body of the Shekhinah “in which the Shekhinah acts and suffers together with the people of Israel (perhaps somewhat parallel to Christianity’s notion of the Church as Corpus Christi, the body of Christ).” (160) Continuing with the language of Song of Songs, Shekhinah is incorporated into the structure of the Godhead, the mystical shape of His body, through comparison with the bride: identified with a chest and field, even the heart of the Godhead (162). Confusion as to the role of the feminine figure of Shekhinah, if it is to be figured in womanly terms to the Godhead, arises amidst the three potential roles of daughter, sister, and mother. Kabbalists resort to romantic language within Song of Songs to unite all such roles in relation to the Godhead:
This is compared to a king who has an only daughter, whom he loved very greatly, and would call “my daughter.” And he did not leave his love for her until he called her “my sister.” And he did not leave his love for her until he called her “my mother.”
These roles are all embodied with heavy feminine connotations, many of which have already been mentioned: fruitfulness, creativity, life-giving, etc. However, Scholem notes, “the Shekhinah is not always thought of as purely receptive and passive.” (165)
“What characterizes the Shekhinah,” Scholem notes, “is her transitional position between transcendence and immanence.” (164) Calling Shekhinah the daughter of the king, Scholem notes that this is synonymous with Gnostic allegory of the soul. This notion alludes to “the interdependence of male and female,” (170) even within the Godhead itself—which, sexless though God is, he encompasses all aspects of gender within Himself. From the 13th century onwards, Scholem identifies the Kabbalistic “role of the Shekinah as a mythical hypostatic in the divine immanence in the world.” (171) Identified as the tenth Sefirah, the concept of Shekhinah being merely entirely receptive evolved, allowing the creativity of the other nine Sefirah (parts of the Godhead) to develop and create. Thus, entirely empty in herself, Shekhinah is described in language of negativity (void allowing for creation, space to evoke speech). Scholem inserts a practical application for women members of the community of Israel from this depiction of the feminine Shekhinah within the configuration of the mystical Godhead shape: “All prohibitions of the Torah are rooted in it… therefore women are obligated to observe the negative commandments as they derive from the same source.” (172)
Thus a compiled concept of Shekhinah emerges, the eternal feminine within the Godhead, “the bride incorporated from everything” (172), purely a mystical receptacle. But within the figure of Shekhinah, there are two manifestations, Scholem describes, a split or division, if you will, allowing for different action and movement of the Shekhinah between upper and lower potencies within the Godhead (in image of the female form itself). The upper Shekhinah embodies “femininity (as) the full expression of ceaseless creative power—it is receptive to be sure, but spontaneously and incessantly transformed into an element that gives birth.” (174) The lower Shekhinah embodies an external creation, which is fixed, being useful mostly in the seven days of Creation, where the upper Shekhinah began its endless creativity of weaving the pattern of life and sustaining life. Scholem beautifully describes Shekhinah’s incorporation into the mystical shape of the Godhead within Kabbalah as “the ‘mother’ of one of the two aspects of the process of God’s self-manifestation or externalization.” (175)
The lower Shekhinah strikes me as the most accessible to man, because it is responsible for physical creation, the density of matter which Scholem describes as a dark mirror that cannot be pierced with perception. By this mirror, “the abundant flow of divine light is broken and reflected; it is precisely this refraction that here becomes Creation.” (175) Scholem draws parallel with Shekhinah between creation and God’s engagement with His people; thus Shekhinah is “that place where Creation began as a process with God Himself is identical with the site of redemption and atonement.” (176) I smile to picture the feminine qualities of the Godhead as so active not only in physical creation, but also spiritual formation. Scholem cites R. Joseph Gikatilla describing
the Shekhinah as the principle of perfection and unity in Creation before these were damaged by human sin but also as the object of the efforts of the patriarchs to restore the lost harmony of Israel. (177)
Women are revealed and embodied in Jewish theology through the correspondence of women to feminine figures both within the Godhead and the language of the commandments. Within the Shekhinah, Scholem states that individual will “as the driving element that seeks expression in the process of Creation,” (179) allowing for two options in practical application, I think: either men using women as objects of their desires for creation or women finding freedom to allow creation of more than put into them for new creation.
Throughout the development of the Shekhinah concept from mere object of creation to aspect at one with and within the figure of the Godhead itself; in some ways Shekhinah seems to be a slight attempt at feminist integration by the acknowledgment of men. Yet by the end of Shekhinah’s evolution, it emerges a formidable piece of Godhead itself in Kabbalistic thought. I am curious as to the connections between women and this aspect of femininity factored into the Godhead—both the religious and social connotations. Did Kabbalah change the Jewish perception of women at large, or merely in this small sect of mysticism? The questions are endless; how also did the Christian Church/Congregation of Israel relationship become reflective in mutual mimicking of one another’s incorporation of womanhood?
Towards female rabbis now?
