Ramak on all this

Ramak agrees with us in Pardes 15:4 that the term Shechina in the idea that “just as the Shechina is below, it’s likewise above” isn’t to be taken in its usual sense. He offers that it’s either a “borrowed” or analogous term meant to allude to the mysteriousness of the subject at hand, or it stands for the whole of God’s emanation and revelations, or to the display of Chochma by means of Binah which is itself termed Shechina. While his first definition is interesting (though nebulous), the others would have the Shechina in this context laying within the circle, rather than above and below it as we set it out, thus offering another view of the fact that truly “The whole world” inside and out “is full of His Glory”.

Ramak also offers that the notion that what’s above comes to be what’s below and vice versa isn’t only so in the “big picture” but in every instance and in each Sephira as well, indicating that everything is a complex of interconnected parts [1].

 

Notes:

[1]       See Zohar 1, 20a and 3, 291b; Sefer Yetzirah 1:7; and Nephesh HaChaim 1:5.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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