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The Divine Presence That Refused to Leave Exile

When Jerusalem fell, the Shechinah did not follow the Sanhedrin or the Temple guard into exile. She went with the children and has not returned from captivity.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. Who the Shechinah Followed
  2. What Shechinah Means
  3. God's Question in the Ruins
  4. Prisoner With Israel
  5. The Ninth of Av and the Return

Who the Shechinah Followed

Rabbi Isaac read the verse from Lamentations slowly. Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy. He asked the question that the text's surface did not answer: where exactly did the Divine Presence go?

He worked through the sequence of the destruction. The Sanhedrin was exiled first, the seventy-one sages who carried the authority of Torah interpretation. The Shechinah did not go with them. The Temple guard was exiled next, the men whose function had been to stand watch over the place where God's presence had most visibly dwelt. The Shechinah did not go with them. The gates of the Temple were uprooted and sent into exile. Still the Shechinah did not follow.

Then the children were driven from Jerusalem.

The Shechinah went with the children.

What Shechinah Means

The word comes from the Hebrew root for dwelling. The Shechinah is the divine presence that dwells, the immanent aspect of God that chose to inhabit the world rather than remain unreachably above it. When the Temple stood, the Shechinah was concentrated there. When Israel was in the land, the Shechinah was oriented toward the land. The tradition knew, and the Temple's destruction confirmed, that this dwelling presence was not fixed to a building. It could move. It did move. It followed the children into Babylon.

Lamentations Rabbah, the fifth-century Palestinian midrash on the Book of Lamentations, is the primary source for Rabbi Isaac's reading. The midrash was compiled to be read on the Ninth of Av, the annual commemoration of the Temple's destruction. It is a document saturated with grief and searching for meaning inside catastrophe. The answer it offers through Rabbi Isaac is not comfort exactly. It is something more uncomfortable than comfort: the divine presence did not stay behind in Jerusalem. It went into exile with the most helpless people in the catastrophe.

God's Question in the Ruins

Pesikta Rabbati, compiled in Palestine around the sixth or seventh century CE, preserves a tradition in which God, surveying the ruins of Jerusalem, asks a question that inverts the usual direction of divine command. God says: Whom among the fathers would you have lead you out? Abraham? Isaac? Jacob? Moses? Aaron? David? Solomon? I shall rather lead you myself.

The offer is not triumphant. God is not a victorious general offering personal escort to a defeated army. God is describing a willingness to enter the degradation of exile rather than wait at a distance for the condition to resolve. The tradition found in this willingness something close to the scandal of Lamentations: that the divine presence chose the prisoners over the sages, the children over the administrators, the exile over the sanctuary.

Prisoner With Israel

Tikkunei Zohar 42, part of the Zohar literature that developed in thirteenth-century Spain and drew on much older traditions, takes this image to its logical extreme. The Shechinah in exile is described as a prisoner. Not a visitor to exile. Not a presence graciously accompanying those in captivity while remaining free. A prisoner.

The Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berakhot 5b, provides the phrase that the kabbalists built on: a prisoner does not release himself from prison. The Shechinah cannot return from exile by an act of divine will alone. The tradition that God can be constrained is not a statement about divine weakness. It is a statement about divine solidarity. The exile of the Shechinah will end when Israel's exile ends. The imprisonment of the divine presence is a function of choosing to go where Israel went, and staying there until the return is collective.

The Ninth of Av and the Return

The tradition read into the structure of Jewish liturgy. Three times each day Israel faces Jerusalem in prayer. The prayers are directed not only toward the geographic location but toward the exile's end, toward the return of what was lost. The Shechinah that went with the children is still there, in the tradition's understanding, waiting with Israel for the moment when the captivity ends.

Rabbi Isaac's question, asked once over a verse in Lamentations, became the question that organized the theology of exile. If the divine presence had stayed in the Temple when the Temple fell, exile would be simple distance from God. But the Shechinah followed the children. The exile is not distance from God. It is dwelling with God in the same captivity. The distance is from the place where the dwelling was public and official. The presence itself has not left.

ShekhinahExileTempleRedemptionKabbalah
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From the tradition

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The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Lamentations Rabbah, Proem 2Hebraic Literature (1901)

Rabbi Isaac noticed something in the book of Eicha, the Lamentations read on the Ninth of Av every year. "Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy" (Lamentations 1:5). He read it slowly, and asked: where exactly did the Divine Presence go?

A Map of the Exile

He worked through the history of the destruction. When the Sanhedrin was exiled, the seventy-one Sages who embodied Torah authority, the Shechinah did not go with them. When the Temple guards were exiled, the Shechinah did not go with them.

When the children of Jerusalem were marched into captivity, the Shechinah went too.

Rabbi Isaac cited the very next verse: "From the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed" (Lamentations 1:6). And the Sages read "her beauty" as a name for the Shechinah itself, the radiance that had rested in the Holy of Holies.

The Midrash on Lamentations preserves this teaching to unsettle a comfortable assumption. We might imagine the Divine Presence attached to Temple architecture, or to legal authority, or to military guardianship. Rabbi Isaac says no: the Holy One followed the children.

Wherever a Jewish child is taken, the Shechinah has already gone ahead to be there when they arrive.

That is what "how greatly beloved are the children" means.

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Mekhilta de-Rabbi IshmaelMekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael

It involves the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence).

The Shekhinah (שְׁכִינָה) is a Hebrew word often translated as "divine presence," the immanent aspect of God that dwells within the world. And according to Jewish mystical thought, the Shekhinah doesn't just hang out in some far-off heaven. Instead, Jewish tradition teaches us that the Shekhinah goes where we go. Whenever Israel went into exile, the Shekhinah was right there with them. It’s a profound image, isn't it? It means that even in the darkest, most desolate places, we are never truly alone. The Shekhinah shares our fate. As Schwartz writes in Tree of Souls, the fate of the Shekhinah and the people of Israel is entirely entwined.

When the people were exiled to Babylon, the Shekhinah was there. When they were exiled to Elam, the Shekhinah was with them. Even when they were exiled in Edom, the Shekhinah remained a constant presence.

Where do we find hints of this? Well, the tradition links the presence of the Shekhinah in Babylon to the verse, "On your account I was sent to Babylon" (Isaiah 43:14). Similarly, the verse "And I will set My throne in Elam" (Jeremiah 49:38) is linked to the presence of the Shekhinah there. And the presence of the Shekhinah in Edom? That's linked to the verse "Who is this who is coming from Edom?" (Isaiah 63:1). These aren't coincidences, but rather, scriptural echoes of this enduring connection.

And it wasn’t just in exile. Remember the Israelites journeying through the wilderness after the Exodus? According to Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Sifre on Numbers, and other sources, the Shekhinah went in front of them, guiding their path. They followed Her guidance. The Shekhinah was accompanied by clouds of glory, and when She journeyed, the Israelites took up their march.

The texts paint such a vivid picture of this journey. When the Shekhinah ascended, the cloud also ascended on high, "so that all men looked up and asked: Who is She that comes up from the desert like columns of smoke?" (Song of Songs 3:6). What a powerful image!

The Zohar, a central text of Kabbalah, adds a fascinating detail to this image. It tells us that the cloud of the Shekhinah looked like smoke because the fire that Abraham and his son Isaac kindled clung to it and never left it. Because of that fire, it ascended both as cloud and smoke, perfumed with the memory of their devotion. There was the cloud of Abraham on the right and the cloud of Isaac on the left.

And what about the future? What happens when exile ends? The promise is just as powerful: When Israel returns from exile, the Shekhinah will return with them, as it is said, "With me from Lebanon, O bride, with me you shall come from Lebanon" (Song of Songs 4:8). The return is a shared journey, a reunion with the Divine Presence that has always been with us.

So what does this all mean? It's more than just a nice story. It's a reminder that even in our darkest moments, we are not abandoned. As we find in Midrash Rabbah, the Shekhinah, that spark of the Divine, is with us, sharing our journey, our struggles, and our hopes for redemption. Perhaps, understanding this profound connection can offer us a sense of comfort, strength, and maybe even a little bit of hope, as we navigate our own exiles, both personal and collective.

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Pesikta Rabbati 30:1-2Pesikta Rabbati

"Comfort, comfort My people, says your God" (Isaiah 40:1). This is what is said by the Holy Spirit: "What shall I take to witness for you? What shall I liken to you?" (Lamentations 2:13). Concerning whom did Jeremiah speak this verse? He spoke it only concerning Jerusalem, for all the prophets sought a mate for Jerusalem and did not find one. A parable: to a man whose wife died, and his companions came in to comfort him. If they comfort him over his wife and he will not be comforted, they say to him: Is your wife more beautiful than the wife of so-and-so, who died, and he accepted comfort over her? If over his son, thus they say to him: Is your son more beautiful than the son of so-and-so? So you find that when the Holy One, blessed be He, brings calamity upon a province, He pairs it with another province to comfort it thereby. When He brought calamity upon Nineveh, He paired Alexandria of Egypt with it, as it is said: "And it shall come to pass that all they that look upon you," and so forth ("Nineveh is laid waste; whence shall I seek comforters for you? Are you better than No-Amon, that was situated among the rivers? She also went into exile," and so forth) (Nahum 3:7-9). With Alexandria He paired Nineveh to comfort it, as it is said: "Speak unto Pharaoh," and so forth ("Behold, Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon," and so forth) (Ezekiel 31:2-3); and at the end it is written: "And strangers, the terrible of the nations, cut him off" (Ezekiel 31:12). But for the Congregation of Israel He found none to pair with her, until Israel said: "Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, until He be gracious to us" (Psalms 123:2). Joel came and paired her, "And you children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the LORD your God" (Joel 2:23), and it is written: "And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in My people; and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying" (Isaiah 65:19).

When Israel went into exile from their land, the Holy One, blessed be He, said to them: Whom do you want? Your earliest forefathers, that I should raise him from his grave and he will go at your head? If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; if Moses and Aaron, I will raise him from his grave and he will go at your head; if David and Solomon you want, I will raise him from his grave and he will go at your head. Israel said to Him: Master of the universe, we do not want these, but only You, as it is said: "For You are our father, though Abraham knows us not, and Israel does not acknowledge us; You, O LORD, are our father, our redeemer; Your name is from everlasting" (Isaiah 63:16). The Holy One, blessed be He, said to them: Since you have spoken thus, I will go up with you to Babylon, as it is said: "For your sake I have sent to Babylon" (Isaiah 43:14), "and I will set My throne in Elam" (Jeremiah 49:38). A parable: to a king who married a wife, and she was with him many years and he had no children from her. He said to her: My daughter, go and marry another man; perhaps you will have children from him; but take all the precious vessels that I have in your house and go. She said to him: If it is so, let me make you a feast, and let us eat and drink, and I will part from you, so that they will not say, See, the king's wife, since he hated her, he expelled her from his house. He said to her: Yes. Immediately she made a feast; the king ate and drank and became drunk. And she commanded her servants in the middle of the night, and they arose and carried him out on the bed to her father's house. When the king awoke from his sleep, he said: In what place am I reclining? She said to him: In my father's house. He said to her: And what is the nature of my being in your father's house? She said to him: Thus you said to me, Take all the precious vessels that I have and go; I have no delight of my eyes and gladness of my soul but you. So too the Congregation of Israel: at the hour when the Holy One, blessed be He, said to them, Whom do you want, that I should raise him from his grave and he will go at your head to Babylon, they said to Him: We do not want any but You, as it is said: "For You are our father." Immediately the Holy One, blessed be He, said to them: I will be your mate, and I will bring you up, as it is said: "For your sake I have sent to Babylon" (Isaiah, ibid.).

Another interpretation: "Comfort, comfort," why twice? Only because of "she weeps sorely" (Lamentations 1:2). The Holy One, blessed be He, said: Now I will comfort you twice over: "Comfort, comfort My people." Another interpretation: The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Abraham: Go and comfort Jerusalem; perhaps she will accept comfort from you. Abraham went and said: Accept comfort from me. She said to him: How shall I accept comfort from you, when you made me into a mountain, as it is said: "In the mountain where the LORD is seen" (Genesis 22:14)? He said to Isaac: Go and comfort Jerusalem; perhaps she will accept comfort. Isaac went and said, and so forth. She said to him: How shall I accept comfort from you, from whom Esau the wicked went forth, and who made me into a field, as it is said: "And Esau went to the field" (Genesis 27:5), and whose children burned me with fire? He said to Jacob: Go and comfort Jerusalem, and so forth. She said to him: How shall I accept comfort from you, who made me as though I had never been, as it is said: "This is none other than the house of God" (Genesis 28:17)? He said to Moses: Go and comfort, and so forth. She said to him: How shall I accept comfort from you, who wrote curses and harsh decrees concerning me: "the wasting of hunger, and the devouring of the fiery bolt," and so forth (Deuteronomy 32:24)? Immediately they all returned and said to the Holy One, blessed be He: She did not accept comfort from us, as it is said: "O afflicted one, storm-tossed, not comforted" (Isaiah 54:11). Immediately the Holy One, blessed be He, said: It is incumbent upon Me to comfort Jerusalem, for thus I wrote: "He that kindles the fire shall surely make restitution" (Exodus 22:5). I kindled her with fire, as it is said: "From on high has He sent fire" (Lamentations 1:13); I will comfort her, as it is said: "For I, says the LORD, will be unto her a wall of fire round about," and so forth (Zechariah 2:9).

The Holy One, blessed be He, said: I wrote in the Torah, "You shall not deliver a servant to his master" (Deuteronomy 23:16), yet I delivered them into the hand of the nations of the world, as it is said: "Except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had delivered them up" (Deuteronomy 32:30). I wrote, "You shall not wholly reap the corner of your field" (Leviticus 19:9), yet I made an end of My fury, as it is said: "The LORD has accomplished His fury" (Lamentations 4:11). And were it not for the iniquities for which they were delivered up, no creature could prevail against Israel. There was an incident of a certain gentile who pursued an Israelite to kill him, and he did not reach him until a serpent came and coiled around him and threw him down. He said to him: Wait until I tell you a thing. Had the Holy One, blessed be He, not delivered us into your hand, you could not prevail against us, as it is said: "Except their Rock had sold them" (Deuteronomy 32:30). And when they killed Ben Koziba, they brought his head to Hadrian. He said to them: Bring me his body. And they found a serpent coiled around his heart. He said to them: It was not we who killed him, but the Holy One, blessed be He, delivered him into our hands, for thus it is written in your Torah: "Except their Rock had sold them."

And the Holy One, blessed be He, is destined to say to Jerusalem: Accept comfort from Me, as it is said: "Open to me, my sister," and so forth (Song of Songs 5:2). She said to Him: He does not accept comfort from You until I and You speak words of reproof, as it is said: "Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field" (Song of Songs 7:12), to a place where there is no commerce, "let us lodge in the villages" (ibid.). I will show you the nations of the world, whom You bestow goodness upon, yet they deny You. She said before Him: Master of the universe, why did You not do for me as for Joseph, as it is said: "Oh that you were as my brother" (Song of Songs 8:1)? Joseph, his brothers dealt evilly with him and sought to kill him, and when they came into his hand, he dealt kindly with them, and he himself comforted them, as it is said: "And he comforted them, and spoke to their heart" (Genesis 50:21). And even Shimei son of Gera said to David: "Behold, I am come this day the first of all the house of Joseph" (2 Samuel 19:21). He said to him: Did they ever distress you as the brothers of Joseph distressed him, and he accepted it from them? David turned back and said before Him: Master of the universe, when You gave the Torah to Israel, You took it around to all seventy nations and they did not accept it, until Israel accepted it; and now that they have accepted it, will You do thus? Immediately the Holy One, blessed be He, instructed her and said: I have regarded you, as it is said: "For I am a husband unto you" (Jeremiah 3:14). She said before Him: Master of the universe, it is fitting that You should speak between Me and Yourself; who will make known concerning me to the nations of the world that I did Your will? They will revile and reproach me and shame me and say to me: You rebelled against your God and you betrayed Him. Immediately the Holy One, blessed be He, said to her: I will make known concerning you to the nations of the world the deeds of your acts of righteousness, as it is said: "For I will declare your righteousness and your works" (Isaiah 57:12). And the Holy One, blessed be He, makes known the righteousness of Israel to the nations of the world. At that hour Michael and Jerusalem say: "The LORD has brought forth our righteousness; come, and let us declare in Zion the work of the LORD our God" (Jeremiah 51:10).

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Sefer ha-Bahir 76Sefer HaBahir

And what is the meaning of "In the midst of the years make it known" (Habakkuk 3:2)? Thus he said: I know that You are the holy God, as it is written, "Who is like You among the mighty, O LORD? Who is like You, glorious in holiness?" (Exodus 15:11), and holiness is in You and You are within holiness. And even so, "in the midst of the years make it known." And what is "make it known"? It means: have mercy, as in the verse "And God saw the children of Israel, and God knew" (Exodus 2:25). What is "and God knew"? A parable: to what may the matter be compared? To a king who had a beautiful wife, and he raised up children from her, and he cherished them and reared them.

But they turned to evil ways, and he hated them and hated their mother. Their mother returned to them and said, "My children, why do you act this way, so that your father hates me and hates you?" until they were comforted and returned to do the will of their father. Their father saw this, loved them as at first, and remembered their mother. This is what is written, "And God saw...and knew..." (Exodus 2:25), and it is written, "And in the midst of the years make it known" (Habakkuk 3:2).

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Tikkunei Zohar 42:18Tikkunei Zohar

The mystics have been wrestling with this idea for centuries. to a passage from Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar 42 and see what it has to say about God, the Shekhinah, and this intriguing concept of divine "imprisonment."

It’s a radical thought, isn't it? The Infinite, the All-Powerful, somehow limited. As Berakhot 5b in the Babylonian Talmud puts it: "A prisoner does not release himself from prison." But what is this prison?

The Tikkunei Zohar tells us that the Shekhinah, the divine feminine presence, is His prison. But not in a negative way. It’s because of Her love that He is "imprisoned" in Her. The very source of divine love, the nurturing and sustaining presence of the Shekhinah, becomes the boundary within which God chooses to dwell. It's a voluntary confinement, born of love and connection. The passage then references the Song of Songs (1:13): "A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me, between my breasts he shall lodge.." This verse, often interpreted as a symbol of intimacy and closeness, further emphasizes the loving bond between God and the Shekhinah.

So, what does this mean for us?

The Tikkunei Zohar goes on to say that if we want to "apprehend the King," to understand and connect with the Divine, we can only do so through the Shekhinah. We can't bypass Her. This idea is supported by the verse from Jeremiah (9:22-23): "Let not boast... except through this..." The "this" refers to the Shekhinah. She is the gateway, the intermediary.

Why is this so? Perhaps it’s because the Shekhinah embodies the qualities of compassion, empathy, and understanding – the very qualities that allow us to relate to something as vast and incomprehensible as God. She’s the bridge between the infinite and the finite, the transcendent and the immanent.

This passage offers a profound insight into the nature of the divine and our relationship to it. It suggests that love, even divine love, can create boundaries. And that those boundaries, paradoxically, can be a source of connection and understanding.

So the next time you feel "trapped" by love, remember this ancient teaching. Remember that even God, in a sense, chooses to be bound by love. And that perhaps, within those bonds, lies the greatest freedom of all.

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