Shekinah-Shakti
Shekinah: The Feminine Element in Divinity
Gershom Scholem: On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead, Schocken, 1991
VII
In conclusion, I would like to respond to a question that has no doubt
occurred to a number of readers during the discussion of these notions
of the feminine within the divine. Can the Shekhinah be described as a
cosmic force in the same sense as we find the feminine in the image of
Shakti in Indian Tantric religion? To my mind, I believe that we can discern
quite clear differences between the two conceptions -- differences
no less profound than their affinities.
The schematic representations of the Sefirotic world in geometric
symbols can be legitimately compared, without distorting the subject, to
the forms of the yantra -- diagrams intended to guide meditation, which
were first interpreted by Heinrich Zimmer in his masterpiece, Kuns~form
und Yoga (Berlin, 1926). Utilizing geometric configurations, these yantras
illustrate the development of the various gods and their mates (Shaktis).
Both the Sefirotic tree and the Shriyantra -- which make similar use of
primal, ancient symbols of the triadic form -- can be take above all as
depictions of the self-unfolding of the transcendent and unknowable. The
student of Zimmer's second, posthumous opus will be amazed to discover
the Kabbalistic symbols of the point and the triangle in these
remarkable discussions of Indian material. The absolute is the energy point
that cannot be represented but only focused upon, the hidden center
from which everything spreads out. The creative energy that spreads
from within the absolute, touching the center and eternally uniting with
it, is the primal Shakti, represented by the innermost interpenetrating
triangle of the Shri-yantra. This symbolism is not identical with that of the
Zohar, but there is a deep relation between them. The author of the Zohar
understands the primal point not as the unknowable ultimate depths of
Ein-Sof but as the unconstructable and hence totally indissoluble hhokhmah
(Wisdom), in which opposites nullify and merge. This primal point
is indissolubly united with the upper Shekhinah, represented by the symbol
of the house or the womb, in which the primal point of hhokhmah
(wisdom) is sown as the world seed. Thus, the Sefirotic pair of hhokhmah
and Binah have something of the nature of the Shakti and her supernal
consort. This resemblance is even more striking when we recall that in at
least a few, albeit late, Kabbalistic schools, I-jokhmah stands for the
unconscious and unknown, while Binah represents the conscious. Just as in
Kabbalah hhokhmah emanates nine Sefiroth from within itself, so in the
Indian doctrine the transcendent and unknowable in the invisible primal
point are represented in the Shri-yantra diagram by nine interpenetrating
triangles, representing the male and female potencies of the god and of
his Shakti.
The Shakti is the dynamic aspect of the world substance; it is itself the
world of manifestation, at the same time as it is within it and works
within it. But this last statement, repeated in various ways in Woodroffe's
and Zimmer's discussions of Shakti, cannot be applied to the Shekhinah,
even where it cati be thought of as an active potency. It is true that the
lower Shekhinah operates in everything and animates everything: His
Kingdom rules in everything (Ps. 103:19), as the biblical verse reads; it
is the spark that dwells in everything, or is trapped or captive in everything
but the Shekhinah is in exile there (a notion that, so far as I can
see, is totally absent in the Indian conceptions). The lower Shekhinah is
not itself the thing or manifestation in which it is present; to put it in
Indian terms, it is not the world of Maya. The manifesting and the mani-
festation, Shakti and Maya, which are one for the Indian esoteric, are not
identical for the Kabbalist. The spark of the Shekhinah, which resides
within concrete things, is always distinct from the phenomenality of
these same things, as clearly demonstrated by the discussions on this
point in many Hasidic texts. The spark can be elevated from the things
in which it is mixed, without thereby affecting the things qua phenomena.
A different, perhaps even more intense, life enters into them; but
there seems to be no necessary inner bond between this specific manifestation
and the specific spark of the Shekhinah that dwells within it. There
are only occasional hints of an esoteric stratum of this doctrine, which
may have gone further than the written formulations would suggest.
One further point:
The God and Goddess are the first self-revelation of the Absolute,
the male being the personification of the passive aspects which we
know as Eternity, the female of the activating energy (Shakti),
the dynamism of Time. Though apparently opposites, they are in
essence one.
It is impossible to apply this to the Kabbalist schema without misconstruing
the sense of the symbols. None of the Sepheroth appearing as male in
these pairs could be identified with the masculine in Indian symbolism,
albeit the idea of femininity as producing the motion of time may indeed
correspond to an astonishing passage in Sefer ha-Bahir.
This passage describes the Shekhinah as the precious gem that brings
forth the years i.e., time, which flows from the primal time gathered
therein, but I am by no means certain that this primal time can be identified
with eternity
On the other hand, when dealing with these comparisons, we must
not forget that the Shekhinah is split in the Kabbalah, so that the active
element within the feminine has been primarily absorbed in the symbolism
of the upper Shekhinah. The latter is the womb of the Sefiroth, of the
aeons and cycles of the worlds (shemitoth), while other aspects of Shakti,
such as the eternal feminine and the destructive element, are expressed
in the final Sefirah or Malkhuth. On the other hand, the notion of the
masculine as purely inactive and passive, an idea that seems intrinsic to
the doctrine of Shakti, is totally alien to the Kabbalah, in which the male
is perceived as active and flowing.
Shekinah
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