Kabbalah-The Shekhinah

Again the Kabbalah uses mysterious words to conceal, with some words meaning the same as another, so here are some definitions to help understand the following pages:
Binah means understanding and represents the "self" on the "middle pillar".
Malkuth means the kingdom of the feminine emanation. It is called by mystics the Cosmic. It is another name for the Shekhinah.

Tetragammation are the four consonants of God's name. God's name was always written without vowels.
Neshamah is the soul. The soul in Kabbalah is divided into 3 qualities...Neshamah is the highest, finest vibration.

Anything in ( ) are my comments.

THE SHEKHINAH

The saddest note in the whole fabric of the Kabbalistic theory of the soul is struck by the idea that a man who is not aware of the precepts of righteousness may never see the Neshamah until he has left this world. Only then may he understand that the Shekhinah, God's bride, is the Neshamah and that he had for a brief time shared her presence in him.

In terms of the Sefiroth, the Shekhinah, represents the middle pillar of the three pillars. She is also known as the Superior Mother and the Inferior or Infernal Mother, the mother and the daughter, the upper Shekhinah and the lower Shekhinah—all appellations referring to the Sefiroth Binah and Malkuth respectively. She therefore also figures in the figure of the Tetragrammaton, the upper (first) and lower (last) He. In short, she is the anima mundi, the world soul who gives a portion of herself to each man in the form of the Neshamah.

We mentioned in Part I of this book that the Shekhinah was originally thought of as God's indwelling or presence. We also mentioned that the Kabbalists later took up this idea of a presence and made of it A part of God, a feminine part.

What the Kabbalists are stating is that God in Man in His whole state (oneness) is androgynous and that in His present condition He is incomplete. The Kabbalists assign the statement 'Let us make man,' to the lips of the Shekhinah and go on to further stipulate that because man was made in God's image he too is androgynous. It is for this reason that one constantly finds statements to the effect that a man must always be male and female. That is, in order for a man's faith to be firm( have confidence) he must always remain in contact with the feminine portion of himself.

In an exceedingly beautiful passage in the commentaries on the “Zohar” the “Shekhinah is likened to a lovely woman courting her lover:

“Truly, the Shekhinah releases a word and emerges a bit from her sheath, and then quickly hides herself again. This she does only for those who know her...The Shekhinah is like a beautiful and stately woman, hidden in a secreted chamber in her palace with a secret lover...This lover constantly passes the gate of her house, searching for her...She opens her chamber door and reveals her face to him but for an instant...He alone sees it.

The passage continues to relate how the mystic is the one who haunts her house and that he had been drawn to her when she once beckoned to him, revealing a portion of her face to him, and he came at the first sign without hesitation. Then she begins to speak to him, simply, within the range of his understanding, from behind a curtain until “insight” (intuition) comes to him.

Then she takes up a veil through which she speaks allegorical words (symbols and archetypes). Only by the latter may he become familiar with her, and only then does she reveal her face. She tells him of all the hidden secrets contained in her, and only then for the first time does he understand the true meaning of the soul.”

According to this passage, therefore, it is not impossible for a man to meet his Neshamah face to face before his death, if he is a Kabbalist. The union of the mystic with his soul, and therefore the restitution of the original divine order, may be Ultimately, the whole of Kabbalistic speculation. Yet it is only a key to the chamber of the sub conscious mind in which each of us may find the Shekhinah.