The rabbinic term “Shekhinah” refers to the divine presence that dwells in the Beit Mikdash (Temple) and accompanies the people of Israel on its historical journey. It corresponds to the biblical Kavod—the divine glory that fills the sanctuary. The Kavod/ Shekhinah is the localized and manifest presence of the infinite one, whose greatness cannot be contained by heaven itself.

Jewish philosophers in the early medieval period were troubled by the biblical and rabbinic notion that the infinite God could, in a sense, become finite. Therefore, they concluded that the finite Shekhinah was a created entity, fashioned by God as an instrument of divine revelation. For them, the Shekhinah revealed God, but was not itself God.

Jewish mystics in the medieval period agreed with the philosophers that the Shekhinah had an identity distinct from the infinite one, whom they called Eyn Sof (“without end”). Like the philosophers, they went beyond the rabbinic texts, which had acknowledged the paradox of divine infinity and finitude without drawing out its implications. Unlike the philosophers, however, the mystics proposed that the Shekhinah was fully divine. She was both distinct from, and one with, Eyn Sof. She revealed God because she was God—in a localized, manifest, finite form.