This feminine aspect of God, the Mother of the Universe, is known in
Jewish tradition as the Shekinah. According to this tradition,
she is God the Mother, the consort of God the Father. She is the
divine radiance, the Great Mother who gives birth to the
Universe. All feminine deities are aspects of her, as is the
Virgin Mary. She is also described in the Kabbala has the
"liberating angel" and what Jacob in Genesis 48:16 refers to
as "the Angel which redeemed me from all evil." She is also
the guardian of the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden.
Gershom Scholem, a great scholar of Jewish mysticism, tells us
that the Shekinah was separated from her lover, God the Father,
following the fall of Adam and Eve. Only on Friday nights, the
Holy Night before the Sabbath, are they reunited before being forced to
part again. Not until all the original light of Creation has
returned to its divine source will the Cosmic Lovers be permanently
reunited. Scholem writes: "to lead the Shekinah back to God
and to unite her with Him is the true purpose of the Torah."
To the mystics of the Kabbalah, we are all involved in this
process. Every act of love and compassion brings the heavenly
couple closer together. In this sense life is a love story.
In essence we are all lonely lovers separated from our love, which can
be found only in our own hearts. The Shekinah is the Angel of
Love, blessing and delighting in the union of lovers, which brings her
closer to her own true love.
