What happens when even the Divine weeps? What happens when home is lost, not just for us, but for God, too?
We often think of God as unchanging, eternal, beyond our human messiness. But Jewish mysticism, particularly Kabbalah, paints a different picture. It speaks of the Shekhinah (שְׁכִינָה), the Divine Presence, the feminine aspect of God, as intimately connected to the fate of Israel. And when tragedy strikes, She feels it deeply.
Imagine the Temple in Jerusalem, standing in all its glory. The rituals, the offerings, the prayers rising like incense… In that sacred space, the Shekhinah dwelled, like a mother watching over her children. The light of the Divine shone on everyone's faces, blessing both the heavens and the earth below.
But then came destruction. The Temple was razed. Israel was exiled. According to the tales, the Shekhinah didn't abandon Her children. Instead, She went to all the places where She used to dwell and wept. She wept for Her ruined home, for Her scattered people, for all the righteous souls who had perished.
The story goes that the Holy One, blessed be He, asked Her, "What ails you?" And She replied, weeping, "My children are in exile, and the Sanctuary has been burnt, so why should I remain here?" As the Zohar, the central text of Kabbalah, tells us, with the Temple destroyed, the Shekhinah went into exile with Israel. There was no joy to be found, above or below.
Isn't that a powerful image? God, in a sense, sharing our suffering.
This myth of the separation of God and His Bride, the Shekhinah, highlights the emergence of the Shekhinah as an independent mythical figure. It's like a story of a couple in conflict, where the wife leaves her husband to be with her children – in this case, the children of Israel. The Zohar (1:120b) emphasizes that the Shekhinah's presence with Israel in exile is proof of God's enduring connection and promise to redeem them.
The Sefer ha-Bahir, an early Kabbalistic text, presents a parable that echoes this theme. It tells of a king with a beautiful wife and children. When the children strayed, the king grew angry with both them and their mother. But the queen, in her compassion, went to the children and pleaded with them to change their ways. When they finally repented and returned to doing the king's will, he remembered them and loved them as much as before, and remembered his love for their mother as well. The king, of course, represents God, and the queen, the Shekhinah.
Rabbi Shlomo Rabinowitz of Radomsk beautifully said that "The Shekhinah protects Jews like a mother taking care of her children" (Tiferet Shlomo on Deuteronomy 29:27). The myth found in the Zohar seems to draw inspiration from this earlier parable.
It's interesting to note that, in the Sefer ha-Bahir's parable, the queen’s fate is intertwined with that of her children. When they repent, God remembers His love for her. According to the Zohar, the destruction of the Temple wasn’t the Shekhinah's first exile; Her first exile occurred when Adam sinned. She was disgraced and banished from the celestial palace, drawing a parallel between the consequences of the sin in the Garden of Eden and the destruction of the Temple, both seen as cosmic catastrophes.
The weeping of the Shekhinah also resonates with other figures of sorrow in Jewish tradition. Think of Rachel weeping for her children in the Book of Jeremiah (31:15), or Mother Zion in Jeremiah (15:9), 4 Ezra (9:38-10:24), and Pesikta Rabbati (26:7). In fact, some scholars believe Mother Zion was a precursor to the Kabbalistic concept of the Shekhinah as the Bride of God.
Even the conflict between God and the Shekhinah finds echoes in other mythologies. Some have drawn parallels to the marital disputes between Zeus and Hera in Greek mythology (as discussed in the Introduction to Tree of Souls, p. lxv, referencing Graves, The Greek Myths, 13c, 13.1).
So, what does this all mean for us today? Perhaps it's a reminder that even in our darkest moments, we are not alone. That the Divine Presence, the Shekhinah, shares our pain and walks with us in exile. And perhaps, just as the queen in the parable never gave up on her children, we too can find hope in the promise of redemption, of a return to wholeness, when the Shekhinah will once again dwell in joy and light.
What do you think? Can understanding the Shekhinah's exile help us to better understand our own struggles and the struggles of the Jewish people throughout history?