The Shekhina and Other Divine Female Figures in the Late Middle Ages: A Synchronic Account

Abstract

Medieval Kabbalistic literature, especially from the last third of the thirteenth century onwards, was very much preoccupied with the notion of a lower-most Sefirah which was perceived by the Kabbalists as female in terms of gender, a notion commonly referred to in scholarship as “Shekhina”. An important scholarly attempt to account for the appearance of this highly gendered version of the notion within medieval kabbalistic literature, focused on the somewhat earlier surge in devotion to Mary in the Christian west. This article proposes a different and much wider perspective on this question, contending that both the Christian preoccupation with Mary as well as the Jewish gendering of the Kabbalistic Shekhina, should both be seen as reflecting the various vicissitudes related to women and female gender concepts characterizing the medieval west in this period. Specifically, the article focuses on late medieval Christian literature describing divine or semi-divine female figures who were designated by Barbara Newman as ‘Goddesses’, suggesting that this literary trend, which is yet another reflection of the aforementioned preoccupation with women and female gender concepts in this period, could shed light on the gendering of the Shekhina in the Kabbalistic literature.

1. Introduction

Medieval Kabbalistic literature, especially from the last third of the thirteenth century onwards, was very much preoccupied with the notion of a lower-most Sefirah which was perceived by the Kabbalists as female in terms of gender. This prevalent and influential theological notion is commonly referred to in scholarship as “Shekhina” (Abrams 2004; Scholem 1987, pp. 162–80; Weiss 2015; Wolfson 1994). An important scholarly attempt to account for the appearance of this highly gendered new version of the earlier theological notion of God’s personified presence (literally: “Shekhina”), focused on the somewhat earlier surge in devotion to Mary in the Christian west. This scholarly hypothesis was grounded in several similarities between the two female divine figures, Mary and the Shekhina (Green 2002; Patai 1967; Schäfer 2002; see also Koren 2010, 2017; Weiss 2013). However, this theory was also harshly criticized, for two main reasons: First, to some scholars it seemed that since the medieval Kabbalistic concept of Shekhina fed on earlier Jewish and non-Jewish sources regarding female and feminine aspects of God, the synchronic non-Jewish angle is of secondary relevance in this case (Scholem 1987; Idel 2005, 2010, 2016, 2018; Liebes 2006). Second, to others, the clear discrepancies between the sexual profiles of these two figures–Mary as the unequaled virgin and the Shekhina as a highly sexual wife of God–excluded any possibility of a substantial historical link between these two figures (Liebes 2005; Idel 2018; compare Abrams 2007, 2010b).

In this article, I would like to propose a different and much wider perspective on this question, one that investigates the contemporary context beyond the rising cult of Mary, in a way that accommodates for both the Mary hypothesis together with the criticism it aroused. I contend that both the Christian preoccupation with Mary as well as the Jewish gendering of the Kabbalistic Shekhina, should be seen as symptoms of a much larger phenomenon, namely, the various vicissitudes related to women and female gender concepts, characterizing the medieval West in this period. Recently, I suggested considering the rising numbers of devout Christian women in this period as a factor related to processes of feminization of divine gender concepts, not only among Christians but also among Jewish Kabbalists, resulting in their preoccupation with a distinctly female version of the Shekhina (Weiss 2021). In what follows I will tackle another central expression of the vicissitudes related to women and female gender concepts in this period. I will focus on a literary and theological characteristic of this period, namely, twelfth and thirteenth century Christian literature describing various divine or semi-divine female figures, who were discussed and analyzed by Barbara Newman as a literary group she designated ‘Goddesses’ (Newman 2003; for reservations regarding her use of this term see for example Smith 2003; Wiethaus 2004; Chance 2004). I will suggest that this literary trend could shed additional light on the gendering of the Shekhina in Kabbalistic literature in this period as well as on the increased preoccupation with this notion per se.

Based on methodological premises conventional in the field of Reception History, according to which ideas tend to thrive where and when a suitable ideational context is provided, I will propose to consider the pervasiveness of Christian medieval writing on divine female figures (Newman 2003, p. 25) as an expression of the synchronic context which also boosted and increased the Jewish Kabbalistic notion of the Shekhina and spurred its indisputable gendering as female (compare Idel 2005). Specifically, I will focus on the literary formation of the female figure of the Shekhina in the context of the extensive literary preoccupation with the divine female figures of Natura, Caritas, Povertas, Ecclesia, and Mary (Newman 2003, pp. 25–35, 305, 310; see also Breen 2021; for some of the constitutive earlier works on medieval allegory see: Frank 1953; Lewis 1951; Whitman 2013; Paxsons 1994). To be sure, the main implication of my attitude is that the rising cult of Mary, alongside other contemporary phenomena–such as the increasing numbers of devout women mentioned above, the thriving medieval allegorical literature focused on divine female figures, to be discussed here, and other aspects related to women and female gender concepts in this period, should not be seen as a list of individual factors which influenced the Kabbalists, making them describe the Shekhina in gendered female terms. Rather, I suggest we consider all these cultural characteristics of the period, the ones occurring in the non-Jewish world alongside the Kabbalistic female gendering of the Shekhina occurring within the Jewish world, as an accumulation of simultaneous historical expressions of a common cultural discourse regarding women and female gender concepts in this period.

Thus, my aim here is to substantiate two main observations: First, that the rise of preoccupation with the notion of a female Shekhina among Kabbalists is contemporaneous with an increased preoccupation with divine female allegorical figures in Christian literature. Second, that the Kabbalists depicted the Shekhina along lines very similar to those used by Christian authors when describing the various divine female figures featured in this Christian literature (See Brown 2022, to be discussed below in detail). For our purpose, from the Jewish angle I will focus here on the Zoharic literature, a large, variegated and highly influential late thirteenth Kabbalistic corpus, as it offers a vast array of personified descriptions of the Shekhina. Though in no way an exhaustive example of Kabbalistic literature as a whole, being a highly variegated Kabbalistic corpus (thus often designated today as “Zoharic literature”) (Liebes 1993, 2001; Meroz 2005; Huss 2008; Abrams 2010a), the Zohar’s great extent, inner heterogeneity, and impressive literary nature will furnish us with illustrative literary examples of the personified and gendered concept of the Shekhina in this period. On the Christian side, I will follow the contour sketched by Newman, focusing on a large and variegated array of religious–and less religious–literary sources of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Newman’s attitude and methodology intentionally challenges conventional boundaries such as those drawn between religious and secular literature, religious and mythical notions, as well as reality, allegory and imagination, an attitude which was subject to both praise and reservations (for example Fulton 2005; Bynum 2006; compare Smith 2003; Chance 2004; Mews 2004). For our purpose, Newman’s methodology alongside the category she coined and used in defining the corpus (i.e., “visionary theology”), in fact befit perfectly the literary-theological nature of Kabbalistic literature in general and the Zohar in particular, and I will therefore be following her delineation regarding the corpus.

In what follows I will survey the main literary attributes and characteristic which seem common to the various divine female figures described in the Christian literature and to the figure of Shekhina described in the Zohar. By looking closely into textual examples, I will demonstrate both the striking resemblance between these literary divine female figures, as well as discuss the clear differences between these various literary concepts described by Christians and Jews in this period.

2. Results

2.1. The Divine Female among the Other Divine Virtues

I would like to start by pointing at a basic structural similarity between the various sources. Simply put, the divine feminine hypostasis is seen as part of a larger compound of allegorized or personified divine attributes. In addition, this female hypostasis is perceived as enjoying a unique status among these attributes, as the main protagonist in a divine dramatic scene. In the Zohar, the Shekhina is perceived as one of the Sefirot, those divine attributes which underwent a process of intensification and personification in the Kabbalistic literature (Zohar III 110a). On each and every page, the Zohar elaborates on the relations between the various Sefirot, with the Shekhina being the key figure in this drama. In comparison to the other Sefirot, the Shekhina is always the feminine par excellence, since all the other Sefirot are of much greater bounty and strength in comparison to the inferior and wanting Shekhina (For an interesting early exception see Brown and Bar-Asher 2020). All this seems to bear a clear resemblance to the contemporary Christian literature depicting allegorically such figures as Love, Nature, or Poverty, as taking part in larger companies of personified divine virtues, indeed an outstanding and privileged part (Elqayam 2015; Fishbane 2018). In Franciscan sources, for example, Poverty is depicted as one of the virtues, clearly attributed with unique and outstanding status among the latter (Armstrong et al. 1999, p. 529). Similarly, in writings of beguines, Love (Minne) is described as the prime among the virtues, for example by Hadewijch of Brabant, Love is “Lady and mother of all virtue” (Hadewijch of Brabant 1998, p. 49). Similarly, in thirteenth century Christian iconography it is conventional to see Caritas among the seven virtues or other allegorical figures, all of them also perceived as female, actively participating in Christ’s crucifixion (Newman 2003, pp. 160–65; Ruether 2005; see also: Freyhan 1948).

2.2. Strength

In relation to the divine male, the divine female is often seen as weak and inferior to the male God, which comes as no surprise given prevalent medieval gender concepts. Before exploring that, however, I wish to focus on the opposite side of this coin, underlining that the female divine figures were also depicted as strong, dominant, and influential personalities, in whose power it is to shape the scene and even influence or overcome not only man’s will but also God’s. In the Christian context, this trait is often attributed to Caritas, with a clear tendency to depict her as a very powerful force which coerced God to descend into the world and become incarnate, a motif already expressed in the twelfth century by Hugh of St. Victor. For example:

O Caritas, Great is your power! You alone were able to draw God down from heaven to Earth. How mighty is your chain by which even God could be bound […] O Caritas, how much more can you accomplish, if you were so strong against God.

(PL 176 974a-975a, English translation: Newman 2003, p. 147)

Moreover, Love was sometimes perceived not only as strong but also as aggressive, mainly by women, as Hildegard of Bingen and Hadewijch of Brabant, who described Minne as a powerful Goddess who conquers everything and everyone, including God (Murk-Jansen 1996; McAvoy 2000; Newman 2003, p. 147; Mommaers 2004; Hollywood 2016, pp. 149–62). In her poems, Hadewijch beseeches God to endow her only with what Love permits, no matter whether good or bad, and she specifically describes Love as so sweet that she prevails over every other power (Hadewijch of Brabant 1998, p. 49): “God give me all/that best love pleases./If it be her pleasure let misfortune/avail me most” (Hadewijch of Brabant 1998, p. 43). In other texts, Love is not only very powerful, but also dangerous and violent, and is described as omnipotent. For example, the same motif of Love pulling Christ to earth is described by Mechtild of Magdeburg in the thirteenth century, with Love (Minne) described as taking Christ’s humanity upon herself, thus compelling him to forsake the heaven for the earth (Mechtild of Magdeburg 1997, p. 42 [FL I.3]); Newman 2003, p. 158; a more general observation on Mechtild’s type of personification regarding Love see Breen 2021, pp. 129–30). This recurring image is interesting to read in light of a Zoharic depiction of how the male Sefirah, ‘the Holy Blessed One’ (the Sefirah Tiferet), left the temple and ascended to heaven in order to spare himself the horrible sight of the destruction followed by the deportation of the Shekhina from the land of Israel into exile together with the people of Israel (Zohar I 210a). Albeit reversed, the narrative shows clear similarities, with the motif of a divine female entity which descends to the lowly world in order to be with her people, while the male God remains in heaven, persistent in both narratives.

The Shekhina in the Zohar is often seen as a powerful force, too, and this seems to feed on late rabbinic notions (Midrash Mishlei 47a, and see Scholem 1987, pp. 164–66; Idel 2018; compare Tzahi Weiss 2015, pp. 40–41). In addition, Brown and Bar-Asher have recently shown that early Sefirotic gender concepts were more heterogenic than was hitherto assumed, and included perceptions of the lower female as superordinate and enduring in terms of gender, although this did not become the mainstream attitude in Kabbalistic literature and was even silenced by copiers (Brown and Bar-Asher 2020). Thus, in the Zohar it is interesting that indeed the Shekhina’s strength is related specifically to her weakness and vulnerability, thus it is mainly in dire states that she becomes a competent and effective power. This is the case in the following passage, in which, fallen into exile, she is described as an enraged lion expelled from its native breeding space, defending her people and fighting their battles:

Although it is written ‘Fallen, not to rise again is Virgin Israel’ [Amos 5 2], She [the Shekhina] is mighty like a lion, like the king of the beasts in that falling. Just as a lion falls only to tear apart its prey and overpower [...] consuming it, so Shekhina falls only like a lion, like the king of beats, to take revenge on other nations and leap upon them.

(Zohar I 237b; all the Zohar translations in the article are based on adaptations of Matt et al. 2004)

Assertiveness even when facing God is also expressed in the Zohar, specifically in relation to her feeble state in the Exile. In the following passage, the Shekhina practically claims God to discharge her from the four exiles, using a very assertive tone:

When Shekhina left the exile of Egypt, she demanded from the blessed Holy One that He redeem Her now four times […] so that she would be free and not divorced. At that moment she was redeemed four times.

(Zohar II 216b, see also III 173b)

A somewhat similar tone stands at the dramatic crux of the literary depiction of Natura in Alain de Lille’s Complaint of Nature (Economou 1972, pp. 73–75; Fleming 2015, pp. 185–249). The latter, following the narrator, and out of profound disappointment and lament, harshly complains about the conduct of men. Although the complaint is addressed to the poet and not directly to God, her bitter and assertive tone stands out and expresses a central trait in her literary character.

2.3. Weakness

Still, the divine female figures are more often than not markedly perceived as weak, impoverished, and inferior in comparison to the male (Wolfson 1994; Tzahi Weiss 2015). This aspect is very prevalent and variegated in the literature, and, for the sake of discussion, I will touch upon five main points: The female is identified as an inferior, often corporeal aspect of the male; the female is hierarchically inferior to the male; the female is heartbroken as she is forsaken by the male; the female is poor, impoverished, and naked; the female’s appearance is wretched, even repulsive, and, as a result, the female is abandoned by the male.

To begin with, both the Christian sources and the Zohar perceive of the divine female as an expression of the relatively concrete, physical, and human-like aspects of the transcendent male God. In this respect, the role of the female is often understood as the one enabling God to act in the world despite his transcendence, and is clearly dependent upon prevalent Aristotelian gender concepts regarding matter and form (Ferrante 1975; Allen 1985; Bynum 1987; Robertson 1991; Hollywood 2016, pp. 26–29; Greenaway-Clarke 2021). This is expressed for example by Hildegard of Bingen in the twelfth century when she described Christ’s humanity or physicality as his wife, as well as by Mary of Oingt in the thirteenth century when referring to the Virgin Mary as Christ’s “Human tunic” (Bynum 1987, p. 265).

Seeing the female as the lower or more “physical” aspect of the male Godhead is very prevalent in the Zohar, although it should be taken into account that the Zohar saw the entire Godhead as anthropomorphic and not just its female aspect (Scholem 1991; Liebes 1994; Idel 2010). Thus, often it is said that the upper world within the Sefirotic Godhead is male while the lower part is female or identified with the Shekhina (Zohar I 246a); and, in other instances, the Zohar identifies the Shekhina as the feet of the ‘King’ while his male ‘organs’ (namely, his Sefirot) are his head (Zohar II 82a); or, the male Sefirah is identified as the soul while the Shekhina is the body (Ra’ya Mehemna, Zohar II 118b).

More generally, we see the divine female as related to the ‘lower’ while the male is the ‘upper’ or ‘higher,’ thus expressing a clear hierarchical relation between them. A prominent example is that of Natura––especially in Alain de Lille’s version, she is presented as a mirror image to that of the powerful and bountiful male God, and as his servant. For example, in the Anticlaudianus: “God commands, she serves [or: administers]; He directs, she acts; He instructs, she accepts instructions” (de Lille 1973, II 73–74 [Sheridan’s translation with minor adjustments]). Or in the De Planctu Naturae, from the mouth of Sapientia:

For his activity is simple, mine is manifold; his work is sufficient, mine deficient […] he is the creator, I was created […] He creates from nothing, I beg what I need from another […] You may know indeed that, with respect to divine power’ my power is impotence, my effects defective, and my vigor but vileness

(Alain de Lille 2010, De planctu Naturae, 6, p. 829, translated by Newman 2003, p. 68)

Indeed, Natura herself is seen as well aware of her inferiority and as accepting it

(Newman 2003, pp. 69–71, 105).

2.4. Suffering and Impoverishment

In addition to her general inferiority compared to the male God, misfortune, misery, suffering, and impoverishment are also inherent characteristics of most of the female divine figures under scrutiny. This feature is as dominant in the literature as it is variegated; indeed, we have already seen that misfortune and suffering are related to the inferiority of the female. Another expression of this has to do with the female’s emotional and erotic dependence on the object of her Love, namely, the male God. Influenced by secular Minnesang, Love (Minne), or the loving Soul, were seen as agonizing lovesick figures, whose experience with love is characterized with disappointment, because love is more often than not taken away from them (Beer 1993; McGinn 1998; Haug 2000; Newman 2003; Hillgardner 2016). Additionally, this is linked with the recurrent motif of the female’s loneliness and forsakenness. Thus, sometimes beguines perceived Love as itself an exile of sorts, or deep misery and want, as in this passage by Hadewijch:

“Whoever would gladly endure the sweet exile [according to van-Baest’s translation, original: ellende]/–This being the way towards the land of high love–He would find his beloved, his realm, in the end”

(Hadewijch of Brabant 1998, p. 85; compare 127).

Indeed, another motif dependent on imagery of the Song of Songs is of sorrowful and suffering nature, which is linked to the female figures in various ways. Interestingly, in the Christian sources we see female figures both as inflictors of agony or as deserters as well as subjects of such agony, and as being deserted and heartbroken. This is characteristic of texts composed by beguines and revolving around the figures of Love and the Soul. Both beguines Mechtild of Magdeburg and Hadewijch of Brabant describe Love as taking away everything the soul has, leaving the soul in absolute want and suffering, and, at other instances, as a ruthless lover, aroused by rage and inflicting much pain on the soul (Mechtild FLG II 25; Mommaers 2004, pp. 129–44; McGinn 2011; Schmidt 1998, pp. xxx–xxxi; On Mechtild and Minnesang in general, see: Beer 1993, p. 93). Clearly, in terms of gender, Love, in fact assumes the male stand, as the one depriving the female soul of the divine flow of Love; yet the topic itself–desertion and deprivation of divine Love–is what concerns us here in connection to the divine female. The gender relations here are even more complex and fascinating than a simple reversal, since it seems that eventually, when Love’s fruition does come about, it is conceived in these texts as a defeat in a ruthless battle (Newman 2003, pp. 10–13, 178–79), which in gender terms, could seem like a process Love is undergoing, with its final goal expressing a re-feminization of sorts.

Another example of this, with a motivic twist which seems specifically relevant to what we will see in the Jewish sources: Hadewijch of Brabant has a description of Minne as related to affliction and specifically to a concept of severe anguish, that she expresses in a word which was translated by Van-Baest, as we have seen, as ‘exile’ (ellende, allendicheit, for example, Van-Baest, SP7, p. 76, line 39; SP9, p. 84, line 21; see Newman 2003, p. 176). Similarly, here too Love fills the gender role of the male, as Hadewijch depicts Love’s double faceted role as the source of both misery and joy of her beloved:

How does love’s coming sate?/With wonder she savours that it is she,/She grants possession of her highest estate,/She bestows the great treasure of her riches./How does Love’s withdrawal cause hunger?/They cannot discern what they should. Nor savour what they would,/That intensifies hunger manifold

(Hadewijch of Brabant 1998, vol. 33, p. 229)

Highly reminiscent of this, albeit formulated differently, is the tragic type of eroticism related to disappointment, heartbreak, exile, and catastrophe, which is identified with the Shekhina in the Zohar. Due to human misconduct, the male Sefirah often deserts the Shekhina, leaving her to anguish and long for the male’s love. This follows the biblical image of the weeping Rachel, which was indeed identified in this period by Christians with the newly introduced Marian image of the Mater dolorosa (Koren 2017; Green 2002), as well as that of the deserted lover in the Songs, for example:

“‘About my bed’ [Song of Songs 3 1], I complained before Him, that He should unite with Me, delighting Me and blessing Me with complete joy.”

(Zohar III 42b, see also II 29b)

On the other hand, from this perspective the Christian and Jewish sources underline how cherished are the few who do acknowledge Love and love her truly, being the small minority among the many who ignore or do not love her. Thus Hadewijch:

For now new folk are to be found/Who endeavour after the righteous way of savouring love/For it remains hidden from the cruel aliens.

(Hadewijch of Brabant 1998, p. 139, see also p. 295)

This passage calls to mind the famous Zoharic depiction found in the Sabba DeMishpatim unit, in which the beloved Torah, described as a beautiful maiden, is hidden in a closed tower, attempting to secretly address her lover, the sage, from among the ignorant crowds (Zohar II 99a–b; Wolfson 1993; Yisraeli 2005; Tzahi Weiss 2013).

Solitude and neglect as expressions of ‘emptiness,’ are also related to impoverishment or to outright poverty. In the Sacrum commercium it is told that Povertas sometimes walks with companions, but often she is witnessed returning naked and alone, without any jewels (according to Isa 61 10, again with striking resemblance to the Sabba DeMishpatim unit, Zohar II 95a; see Weiss 2013), weeping and complaining about her mother’s sons who abandoned her (according to Songs 1 6, Armstrong et al. 1999, vol. 9, p. 531; see also Newman 2003, p. 4). Indeed, wretchedness and forlornness are almost interchangeable in this case. Nevertheless, Povertas is not neglected by God or by her lovers, such as Francis and his followers. The latter tell us that God left the angels, gave up all his strength, and came looking for Povertas in the mire, darkness, the valley of shadow of death (SC 17, 534). Specifically, this attribute of wretchedness and impoverishment as Poverty’s most admired quality is emphasized in this early Franciscan literature (Şenocak 2013, pp. 11–14). In the Legenda Trium Sociorum (2010) it is said several times that Francis considered Povertas as “the most beautiful Bride,” and that indeed she, “above any other is noble, rich, and beautiful in its poverty,” with the literary reversal clearly underlined (Legenda trium sociorum 3.7, see also 5.13; Bonaventure, Legenda major, VII, prologue; Wolf 2003, pp. 30–36).

As has already been noted by Brown in his discussion of the Sacrum commercium and Ezra of Gerona, clear similarities exist between this Franciscan treatise and medieval Kabbalah (Brown 2022, p. 296). Specifically in the Zohar, the Shekhina is often described as poor or impoverished, being the ultimate Sefirah (and in contradistinction Brown and Bar-Asher 2020, mentioned earlier). Furthermost, remote from the divine source, and deprived of any inherent divine light, she is completely dependent on the light received from the male. This dominant theme often appears in the Zohar with an identification of the Shekhina with David, who describes himself in the Psalms as poor, miserable, and impoverished, since he was punished by alienation from God’s close companion (Zohar I 256b, II 276a-b, I 233b).

It is important to stress a certain point here, as it expresses an essential departure of the Christian sources from what we find in the Zohar. In the Kabbalistic version, the Shekhina is not essentially impoverished, but only ends up this way due to men’s failure to meet up to their religious obligations. In fact, here not only men but even the male God finds her misery unattractive. Hence, she is dependent on the few sages who manage to see past her wretchedness into her real beauty underneath, and thus help adorn and strengthen her anew so that she might again become attractive in the eyes of the male God, who only then will consent to conjugate with her thus restoring her into her fully magnificent state. In other words, impoverishment is not considered as an inherent positive quality of the female, rather as a contingent, regrettable, and temporary situation. In contradistinction, the Christian sources which admire Povertas, see this quality as positive and divine in itself. Thus, the Sacrum commercium has Povertas neglected by the people because they fail to see the evangelical sanctity her poverty expresses. Francis and the male God, by contrast, love and woo Povertas exactly for this divine attribute, her poverty (see Wolf 2003; Brown 2022, p. 299). Also, as was noted by Brown, while the main beneficiaries of the female’s coupling in the Jewish context was the Shekhina herself, in the Christian context it is either Christ or the Franciscans themselves who seek her company and favors (Brown 2022, p. 298).

Nevertheless, being wretched to a degree that is repulsive even to God is also sometimes attributed to the divine female. Bernard Sylvestris related it to the figure of Natura’s sister, Sylva, or prime matter. In his Megacosmos, he described her in an appalling manner, as a rejected and outcast figure who shows herself only during dark. Coming to her aid, her sister Natura thus complains:

Can Sylva not be wrought more gracefully/cast off her torpor, win a farer shape? […] what good to fecund Silva that she rose/before all other things, if she lacks light,/if she abounds only in night, cut off/from her perfection, if she terrifies/even her creator by her ugliness?.../Forgive me, gentle mind, but I must speak:/though you are fair […]/why is Want Sylva’s lasting friend?

(Bernard Sylvestris, Megacosmos I, translation: Newman 2003, p. 59)

Similarly, the Zohar describes the Shekhina as weak and unattractive (Weiss 2015)––while in exile she is described as miserable and pathetic, identified with the night as a central symbol of the exile (Zohar II 54b), and the exile, in turn, is understood as the forsaking of the Shekhina by the male God (Zohar III 25b). As already mentioned, the Shekhina’s dire situation seems like an impasse, since she could only be saved by coupling with the male. Indeed, in her current miserable state, she is unattractive to him, and, if this was not enough, the divine coupling can only take place in the temple, which is now in ruins:

[…] I plead, for I am suffering pain in exile. So “I sought him whom my soul loves” [Song of Songs, 3 1]–to deliver me. “I sought him, but did not find him”–for it is not his way to unite with me except in his palace.

(Zohar III 42a-b)

In the Jewish context, the only way out of this impasse is by the assistance of men, who, by fulfilling their religious obligations, rehabilitate the Shekhina, preparing and embellishing her for her divine husband (Wolfson 1995; Idel 2010; Kara-Ivanov Kaniel 2022).

2.5. God’s Spouse

Notwithstanding, perhaps the single most dominant aspect of the divine female is that she is God’s spouse. This notion feeds on biblical imagery, most prominently from the allegorical interpretations of the Song of Songs, identifying Ecclesia and later also Mary, as God’s spouse, and also with the various depictions of Sapientia as God’s beloved spouse in the Wisdom literature such as Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Ecclesiasticus (Camp 1985; on the notion of spiritual marriage of the soul with Sophia and its Hellenistic sources, see Horsley 1979). This idea persevered in various sources in late antiquity, but there can be no denial that it enjoyed unprecedented resonance in the late Middle Ages (Keller 2000; Newman 2003; Young 2003; Sinnott 2015; Carson Bay 2020). The bride of the Songs and the spouse–Sapientia were never separate, rather they intermingled in various forms in the medieval literature. The sources show a great wealth of ideas in this direction. For Hildegard, for example, the Bride of the Songs was the anthropomorphized world in its positive state, a merge of Creatura and Sapientia, whom she saw as God’s spouse (Newman 1987, pp. 64–65). In other instances, the bride image does not directly rely on the Songs’ imagery, as in the case of Mechtild, who throughout her entire life, depicted her mutual loving relationship with God, her spouse (Schol 1987). In the Zohar too, being the Spouse of God is the most central and defining trait of the Shekhina (Liebes 1994, 2005; on the sapiential background in the Jewish context, see Patai 1967, pp. 138–40). Although they are often apart, the intimate erotic relations between the Shekhina and her male spouse Tiferet stand at the crux of this literary corpus.

In the same vein, as spouse of the King of Kings the divine female is often designated and depicted as a queen, more accurately–the Queen. A famous example is Hildegard, who in her visions saw Sapientia, Christ’s spouse, as a queen (Newman 1987, pp. 46–50). Even more prominently than Sapientia, in this period Mary was often described and visualized as a queen–queen of heaven–with the motif of her celestial coronation becoming very popular in iconography from the twelfth century onwards. Thus, Mary was depicted next to Christ as his equal mate, with both seeming to be the same age and of similar stature, as a royal couple of sorts (Green 2002; Newman 2003, p. 256; Rubin 2009). As we’ve already seen, Povertas too was depicted as God’s Queen. The Sacrum commercium tells us that the King of Kings made her Lady and Queen (SC 16, 534) when he lifted her from her deteriorated state, took her to be his bride, and endowed her with a queen’s crown (Armstrong et al. 1999, vol. 18, p. 535).

Very similar depictions are found in the Zohar regarding the Shekhina. First of all, it is worth noting that a very recurrent symbol of the Shekhina in Kabbalistic literature is the designation as the feminine Sefirah known as ‘Malkhut,’ namely ‘Kinghood’ or monarchy. More specifically, in the Zohar a prevalent designation of the Shekhina is either ‘Queen’ or ‘Matronita,’ an Aramaic form stemming from the root of the word ‘matron’ and referring to a Lady and Queen. A very recurrent theme in the Zohar is that of the exile as a state in which the king is without his queen: “and a king without his lady is not a king” (Zohar I 256a-b; I 212b). Being queen is not only a sign of stature and dominion, but expresses, more prominently, her erotic intimacy, or lack thereof, with the king, namely the male God:

When is it called “one”? when the Lady is with the King and they couple as one, as is written: The kingdom shall be God’s [Ob. 1 21]. Who is Kingdom? Congregations of Israel, to whom Kingdom is linked. Then, on that day God will be one and his name one [Zecharia 14 9].

(Zohar III 7b)

The act of coronation carried out by the male God, is also evident in the Zoharic texts, and it seems to serve as a platform for including additional contents into the image of the Shekhina as a queen. For example, the messianic tones attributed to the Shekhina are expressed in a description of her coronation, when the male God crowns her with the Messiah’s diadem (Zohar II 132a). Another prevalent specification within the motif of God’s spouse is that of a Bride, which tends to express the more erotic aspects of this theme. The Bride of God is a very early motif related, among others, to the personification of Ecclesia in the New Testament as Christ’s Bride, and to the allegorical interpretations of the Bride as the Church in the Song of Songs (Newman 2003, pp. 15–17).

In addition to being a bride, the actual act of marriage between the divine female and God, as well as its consummation, are prevalent motifs in the medieval literature describing female divine hypostases. In the Liber divinorum operum, Hildegard overtly explains the narrative of the Songs as referring to the betrothal of Ecclesia:

Thus, the Church, adorned and endowed with the virtues described above, was led into the King’s bedchamber […] O Son of the Father, in the betrothal of the Catholic faith the Church stood in the prosperity of heavenly desire.”

(Hildegard of Bingen 2018, Divine works III, vision III.3)

However, not all descriptions of the bridal motif are of any nuptial or erotic nature. For instance, Hildegard in the Scivias describes the bride as a strong protective force, never succumbing to the threats and dangers that her children have to confront (Hildegard of Bingen 1990, Scivias II, vision I.15, p. 157; see also II 6, 1; Beer 1993, p. 54). This variedness is better understood in light of Newman’s observation that the centrality of the bride attribute arises from the variety of literary and iconographical presentations of combined traits and characteristic of several of the female divine figures merged into the single figure of the Bride of Christ (Newman 2003, p. 165). This is an important point for us, because in the Zohar, ‘Bride’ is a very common designation and symbol of the Shekhina and seems interchangeable with other spouse images (Zohar II 63b). Also, in the Zohar there seems to be specific accent on the institution of the marriage alongside an expectation of its consummation, as when the Shekhina is described entering the newly built tabernacle as a bride coming under the wedding canopy used in the Jewish wedding rite (Zohar II 5b). This is a recurrent image, which depends on the identification of the Shekhina as Moses’s Bride (Zohar II 69b; III 4b). Still, the Bride in that image is first and foremost God’s, and the moment of entering the tabernacle alongside the divine marriage per se, are also understood as an opportunity for the people to win some hold in God and participate, through the bride, in the act of divine coupling.

In the following passage, the motif of God descending into the tabernacle on the occasion of the divine marriage is quite reminiscent of Hadewijch’s description of Love pulling God down to earth in order to become incarnate and save humanity. This is the Zoharic passage:

[…] When Shekhina entered the Tabernacle, […] [she] entered like a bride coming under the canopy. Then Israel was perfected below and united with the blessed Holy One on earth, as is said: “Have them make me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them” [Exodus 25 8]. Then those above and those below were sweetened.

(III 4a–b)

A highly interesting and noteworthy motif related here is the preparation of the bride for her marriage by ornamenting her so that the divine bridegroom would find her attractive. Quite a few examples arise from the literature, and in each case a unique specific meaning is assigned to the decorated bride or to the action of decorating. This motif seems to arise from the depictions of the divine female hypostasis described in the Book of Revelation 19 7–8, where a ‘woman, wife of the lamb,’ is described, who was dressed in linen whose whiteness was credited to the righteousness of saints (perhaps: identified with it, Revelation 19 8), and later on the ‘New Jerusalem’ who was prepared as a Bride adorned for her husband (Revelation 21 2; this is prevalent in late twelfth century sources, for example identification with the Church–Peter Cellensis (Cellensis 1855, p. 1008); identification with the spouse in the Song of Songs–the Song of Songs commentary by Thomas Cisterciensis (Thomas Cisterciensis 1855, p. 448; Astell 1990). In the twelfth century, Hildegard in her visions makes reference to this aspect several times, describing Caritas as a lady to be adorned. In her Liber divinorum operum, the heavenly Jerusalem, who is made of the divine virtues, appears to her husband as an adorned bride:

[…] the image previously identified to you as Divine Love […] appears now with a different trim […]. This is because [… Love is] adorned at one time with this trim, at another time with that–for the virtues that are at work in humans display Love as if she were adorned with noble beauty. […] She has a golden necklace set with precious stones around her neck, beckoning a person to take upon himself the yoke of subjection and adorn it with the blessed virtues, so that, humbled in all things, he shows himself truly subjected to God.

(Hildegard of Bingen 2018, Divine works, III, 5.3)

I would like to draw attention to the idea of the human act of embellishing or adorning the female for it bears clear resemblance to a prevalent Kabbalistic notion, and this affinity should be examined prudently. In another example, from Hildegard’s Scivias, the bride of Christ is to be ornamented with virtues in order for her to endure and prevail in the expected struggle against the serpent, as she defends the faithful (Hildegard of Bingen 1990, Scivias, Book II 1.17). There, it is Christ, her Bridegroom, who ornaments her and not the good deeds of men. Still, for the sake of our following discussion I will point out that this ornamenting is understood as an arming of sorts, which is supposed to strengthen her and prepare her to fight the evil forces. Devout human actions as generators of clothing or ornamentation for the divine female is not restricted to the writings of Hildegard. Another example could be drawn from the thirteenth Century anthology Speculum virginum, in this case with reference to the Virgin:

While browsing through the meadows of Scripture, we have at the same time gathered flowers to weave a crown for the virgin’s head, until we are able to cover the rest of her body as well with mystical garments–so that, beautifully adorned, she may proclaim to her bridegroom, “He has clothed me with the garment of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of justice” [Is. 61 10].

(Newman 2001, Speculum virginum, 1.953–1000)

The author of this passage believed that by reading scripture the nuns are spiritually preparing a mystical wedding garment for Mary, adorning her in order to make her attractive for her Bridegroom, the savior Christ. Special interest in the dress of the female divine Hypostasis is also a central motif in the Chartrian concept of Natura, again with a close link between the state of the garment and the behavior of human beings. Thus, Alain de Lille describes Natura as an epiphany of the created world, with the Jewels of her crown representing the firmament, planets, and zodiac signs, her robe covered with sketches of the creatures of the air, her mantle with those of the waters, and her tunic with the animals of the earth. However, as a result of the sexual transgressions of men, her garment is now ripped and damaged (Economou 1972, pp. 75–76; Newman 2003, p. 67; Davis 2016, pp. 16–17). Here it is interesting to note that this principle goes both ways–the female hypostasis is not only strengthened, clothed, and adorned by human righteousness, she is also liable to endure suffering and affliction when humans do not meet up with God’s expectation. It is the female who is punished, while the humans watch her in her misery and lament her state caused by their deeds.

This concept that humans adorn the Shekhina by performing righteous actions, fulfilling the commandments, and studying the Torah in order to prepare her for her wedding and the coupling with her husband, the male Sefirah, and, on the opposing side, that when they transgress, primarily sexually, they damage her appearance, thus alienating her from her husband, is very prevalent in the Zohar (Idel 1990; Wolfson 2005; Fishbane 2018; see also Brown 2022, p. 299). One example is the following passage:

All those Companions initiated into the bridal palace need–on that night when the bride is destined the next day to be under the canopy with her husband–to be with her all night, delighting with her in her adornments in which she is arrayed, engaging in the Torah, from Torah to Prophets, from Prophets to Writings, midrashic renderings of verses and mysteries of wisdom: these are her adornments and finery. […] The next day She enters the canopy only with them […] Rabbi Shim’on said: My children, happy is your share! For tomorrow the bride will enter the canopy only with you.

(Zohar I 8a)

Here, Simon ben Yohai, the literary protagonist of the Zohar, together with the other Zoharic sages, are described as studying the Torah during the night which precedes the coming together in marriage of the Shekhina and her Bridegroom, the male Sefirah, the following day (Boyarin 1993; Liebes 1994). The study of the Torah is described in detail as a process of adorning the bride with her decorations and jewels, thus stressing that she depends on them for entering her own wedding canopy in order to marry the male (see also: Zohar II 27b, I 168b-169a, II 133a [Raya Mehemna]).

2.6. Daughter

Alongside bride and spouse, the close intimacy between the divine female figure and the male God is also expressed by means of other familial kinships. (Regarding Mary, see the important chapter in Newman 2003, pp. 290–45; see also Archibald 2001; Sachs-Shmueli 2021). That of a mother, for example, is well familiar to us from the Zohar where it is said that God’s love for his Bride is so great that he ultimately calls her his mother (Zohar III 262a; Idel 2011; Pedaya 2011; Liebes 1994). However, in both the Zohar and the Christian literature, the more prevalent familial kinship is that of father and daughter. Here too the biblical roots of the motif are clear and can be traced in the Wisdom literature. Later on, within the Jewish context, these notions appear in the rabbinic and Kabbalistic traditions regarding the ancient Wisdom and Torah, both attributed to the female in Sefirotic terms (Scholem 1987, pp. 171–72; Tishby 1989, pp. 606–7). In medieval Christian allegorical literature, the divine feminine is often perceived as God’s daughter, with the prevalent allegorical motif of God’s four daughters, already to be found in earlier authors such as Bernard of Clairvaux and Hugh of St. Victor (Newman 2003, pp. 44, 341 note 108; Murray 1918, Le Chateau d’Amour (Introduction), pp. 64–81; on the earlier versions of Hugh of St. Victor and Bernard of Clairvaux, see Marx 1995, pp. 58–59). Another example is Robert Grosseteste who based his Le Chateau d’Amour on this theme, with the description of the daughters as very influential on their father who does not arrive to any resolution without the counsel of his daughters (Newman 2003, p. 44). Also, Natura was famously conceived as a divine daughter as can be seen in Bernard Sylvestris (Dronke 1980; Taiz and Lee 2017, p. 291). Finally, Mary, with her striking familial versatility in relation to God in medieval literature, is also sometimes seen in iconography as the daughter of the Trinity as a whole (Breeze 1990; Archibald 2001, pp. 238–44; Newman 2003, p. 259). Similarly, in the Zohar the Shekhina is often identified as a daughter (II 115b, Raya Mehemna), being a sister and spouse of the son, namely the divine male Sefirah: “‘We have a little sister’ [Song of Songs 8 8]–Assembly of Israel [i.e., the Shekhina] who is called sister of the blessed Holy One” (Zohar II 80b, see also III 7b, II 85b).

2.7. Representing Men

Another fundamental characteristic of the divine female in the Christian sources and in the Zohar, again with ancient roots, is that of a symbol or representation of men, mankind or the religious congregation as a whole. In the Christian sources it will be humankind, the believers or Ecclesia, and in the Jewish context, the sages or the Congregation of Israel (Knesset Israel). In this respect, Hildegard and the author of the Speculum virginum were very much influenced by the supernatural woman described in the Revelation as the New Jerusalem (Newman 2003, pp. 199–200). In the Scivias, Hildegard saw Ecclesia in colorful radiant light, with each tone representing different ranks within the church, arranged hierarchically from the secular to the priesthood (Hildegard of Bingen 1990, Scivias, II vision V). In addition, this expression or manifestation of humankind as part of the natural world is most clearly attributed to Natura (Dronke 1980), for example, as we have seen, in Alain de Lille’s description of her dress on which the entire natural creation is sketched including humankind. The state of the dress represents the moral condition specifically of men, and when they sin, it is torn.

In the Zohar too, the Shekhina represents the believers, both as a group or general concept (Congregation of Israel) as well as individually–the human soul or, more often, the sages who are the protagonists of the Zoharic narrative, namely Simon ben Yohai and his friends. A very common literary convention describes the sages meeting and greeting each other, saying they were in fact meeting with the Shekhina (Zohar I, 207a-b), and when they kiss each other, they are thus expressing their spiritual and emotional intimacy, describing it as kissing the Shekhina, for example: “Rabbi Pinhas came out and kissed him, and said: ‘I am privileged to kiss the Shekhina!’” (Zohar III 69b). From a different angle, the people of Israel are perceived as the organs of the Shekhina (Zohar III 17a). This mutual self-identification between Israel and the Shekhina is also why human actions, particularly legitimate sexual intercourse for the purpose of procreation, simultaneously involve the Shekhina, who is thus aroused to seduce the male Sefirah to conjugate with her (Zohar III 49b). Finally, one must mention again the prevalent motif, already discussed, of the Shekhina in exile with Israel. For the present purpose it should be stressed that Zoharic depictions, based on earlier sources, see the exile of the Shekhina as occurring both alongside that of her people and at one and the same time as a divine representation or manifestation of the human events themselves (Zohar I 134a).

2.8. Mediator between God and Men

Following the attribute of representing humans, it is quite natural to see the divine female figure also as a mediator or transferer of divine male grace to humans. This attribute is also a central one, which appears in variegated expressions in the literature. Of these I will touch upon two expressions–transferring of divine influx from the male God to men, and serving as a platform or vehicle which enables participation in the divine male. From the Christian perspective, at the basis of this stands the sacramental concept of the church as a means for transferring divine grace from Christ. What we see in medieval literature, such as in Hildegard, is a personification and intensification of this notion, and particularly–its female aspect. For example, in the Scivias:

Hence that image raises herself upward so that she is sprinkled by the blood from His side; and thus, by the will of the Heavenly Father, she is joined with Him in happy betrothal. For when the strength of the Passion of the Son of God flows burningly forth and rises to the height of the celestial mysteries, as the perfume of spices diffuses itself upward, the Church, fortified by that strength in the pure heirs of the eternal Kingdom, is faithfully joined by the high Father’s decision to the Only-Begotten of God. How? As a bride, subjected to her bridegroom in her offering of subordination and obedience, receives from him a gift of fertility and a pact of love for procreating children, and educates them as to their inheritance. So too the Church, joined to the Son of God in the exercise of humility and charity, receives from Him the regeneration of the Spirit and water to save souls and restore life, and sends those souls to Heaven.

(Hildegard of Bingen 1990, Scivias II, vision VI. 1, pp. 238–39)

This personified, feminized preoccupation with the sacramental nature of the Church, indeed itself one of the earliest tenets regarding the theological concept of the Church, must be examined as part of a larger characteristic of medieval Christian theology, namely the various vicissitudes characterizing sacramental theology in this period and the sacramentalization of marriage (Coolman 2015; Reynolds 2016). This topic, which has important ramifications for other aspects of early Kabbalistic theology, I plan to discuss elsewhere.

Similarly, the Zohar often personalizes and dramatizes the theological notion of the ultimate Sefirah as a female persona who is a mediator of divine profusion into the mundane world, intended for the congregation of Israel or the sage’s soul (Zohar I 70b, III 186b, III 43b-44a). This conferring of divine male profusion is overtly understood in sexual and erotic terms as the reception of divine semen from the male God, therefore fertilization is a means of vitalizing and making whole. Quite remarkable, these descriptions often use the image of fragrance perfuming the whole world as a sign of divine coupling which generates male profusion (Zoahr I 45a; I 84a; et alia). Being a mediator has other facets as well. As the Congregation of Israel, for example, the Shekhina opens the gates of Heaven for the sages who study the Torah and allows them to participate in the nocturnal coupling of the male God and the Shekhina, with its subsequent resulting divine influx (Zohar 243a). In addition, God made the Shekhina in charge of the entire mundane world, and as such she is his proxy: whoever wishes to address God cannot do so until he informs the lady (Zohar II 51a).

This perception of the divine female as a means for participation in the divine male in order to be endowed with divine grace or profusion is very central and fundamental in the Christian literature as well, where it is attributed to several of the main divine female figures such as Mary and the Church, but also Love, Poverty, and Nature (Newman 2003, pp. 40–42). A very famous example regarding Mary is recorded in the words of the Stabat mater, composed anonymously in the thirteenth century:

O, Mother, Fount of Love, make me feel the intensity of your pain, so that I could weep with you […] Holy Mother, please do so: forcefully pierce the crucified’s wounds in my heart […] make me truly wail with you, truly hurt with the crucified, until my resurrection. All I wish is to stand next to you in face of the cross, to willingly connect to you in your grief. Make me wounded with these wounds, inebriated with this cross, in the love of the Son.

As we have witnessed regarding other attributes discussed earlier, the specific characteristics of this motif vary and should be examined individually regarding each of the female divine figures. Among others, we see that in some cases the participation is adjunct to the erotic aspect of relationship between the female and male God, while in others it is not. Thus, regarding Natura, Newman remarked that since, as God’s daughter, she is in charge of procreation, (legitimate) sexual intercourse becomes a divine action in which humans can participate by having sex. Since Poverty is Christ’s bride, true unification with him would have to be achieved by those adopting true poverty (Newman 2003, p. 41). For example, in the Sacrum commercium: “he who redeemed us through you may receive us through you” (Armstrong et al. 1999, vol. 16, p. 534). Accordingly, in the Stabat mater which focuses on the figure of Mary, participation in the divine is possible by way of her agony at the sight of the crucifixion, and by way of identifying with this agony the believer wishes to draw closer to God.

2.9. Procreation, Eroticism and Sexual Normativity

In the Zohar, this is primarily relevant regarding the sexual unification taking place within the divine between the Shekhina and the male Sefirah, an occurrence which is enhanced by mundane human legitimate sexual intercourse, occurring simultaneously with the divine one, preferably on the Sabbath eve at midnight (Zohar I 50b). However, despite the very erotic nature of Zoharic theology, it is noteworthy that in the Zohar the more prevalent version has the sages studying Torah together at midnight, a sublimation of actual intercourse with their wives, in order to arouse and enhance the divine coupling (Zohar I92b). What is important in this respect for our purpose is that when the actual divine coupling finally takes place the sages who assisted in the process by studying the Torah are given a share in the divine sexual act, as they “participate in the Shekhina” when she unites with her husband (Zohar III 65a, II 46a, III 22a).

Following these highly erotic descriptions of the Shekhina in the Zohar, I would like to address another attribute of some of these divine female figures, namely everything related to procreation, sex, and eroticism. Clarifying this point is very important for my argument as a whole, as the only previous attempt to suggest a synchronic non-Jewish background for the Jewish preoccupation with a female Shekhina in this period based itself on comparison to the figure of Mary. However, being a virgin par excellence, the comparison to the sexual figure of the Shekhina seems problematic (Liebes 2005; Idel 2018). As stated, however, I believe that a broader outlook on the contemporary literature which focuses on divine female figures could help us out on this point, since, even if we put aside Mary’s erotic relation with her son in medieval literature (Green 2002), such a view reveals that issues of sexuality and procreation were in fact very much present in the depiction of other divine female figures.

For our purposes, I would like to start with two features of Natura which appear in the accounts of Alain de Lille and Bernard Sylvestris. The first is the great importance laid upon procreation by means of legitimate sexual activity, alongside harsh criticism on those abstaining from it. The second, related to the first, is what Newman designated as Natura being the ‘Goddess of Normativity,’ expressed in Natura’s complaint against any violation of the legitimate sexual behavior, with homosexuality and the avoidance of procreation at the top of the list (Newman 2003, pp. 71–72, 93–97; Economou 1972, p. 87; Wetherbee 1972, pp. 190–96; see Boswell 1980, pp. 309–13). In Alain de Lille’s version, we see Natura fighting Lachesis through procreation, while cooperating with the male Genius (Newman 2003, pp. 69, 90–96; on the possible origins of this in the figure of Terra see Dronke 1980). Natura’s commitment to sexual normativity is for her a central key in her figure as a whole.

It should be noted, however, that these literary examples are focused on natural intercourse solely as means for procreation, and it does not seem that these authors specifically related this to erotic passion as part of the process. Still, in the Roman de la Rose, for example, where Natura speaks against virgins and celibates, there is no question that she is identified with a passion which is parted from and even contradictory to Reason (Fleming 1984; White 2000; Minnis 2001; Newman 2003; McWebb 2004).

This aspect of procreation by way of normative sexual activity is highly developed in the Zohar and specifically regarding the figure of the Shekhina. In a nutshell, the sexual intercourse of the Shekhina and the male Sefirah, with the aim of conferring divine grace perceived as semen, is indeed as basic to the figure of the Shekhina in the Zohar as virginity is to the figure of Mary in Christian sources. The concrete manner in which this divine intercourse was perceived could be gleaned from the many comparisons drawn between the coupling of the Shekhina and that of the human women with their husbands (Zohar I 50a), and from the belief that the Shekhina participates in every (legitimate) human intercourse (Zohar I 176a). Second, the Zohar is very clear in its un-compromising demand to preserve the “covenant,” namely the obligation to engage in legitimate sexual intercourse and abstain from the severe transgressions of celibacy, failure to produce offspring, coitus interruptus, adultery, and homosexuality (Zohar I 219b, II 114b, I 228b; Liebes 1994; Wolfson 1995). Specifically, the Shekhina is often discussed in relation to these violations, and she is perceived as the divine expression of anything contradictory to these offenses, as in the following passage, opening with: “there are three [sexual sins] who thrust the Shekhina away from the world” (Zohar II 3b). The Shekhina does not promulgate observing sexual normativity, rather her very presence or absence express the standard of sexual normativity among men (see also Zoahr I 84b, III 37b, III 44b), which again brings to mind the motif of Natura’s dress as an expression of the degree of observance of sexual norms among people.

Natura was not the only female divine figure described in Christian sources as related to sexuality. Hildegard depicted the female as a queen coupling with the King in his bedchamber, for example a female figure identified with Sapientia “is joined to [God] in sweet embrace in a dance of ardent love” (Hildegard of Bingen 1990, Scivias III, vision IX, p. 465). This description stands in remarkable similarity to the theurgical descriptions prevalent in the Zohar, in which the divine erotic coupling of the Shekhina with the male Sefirah restores cosmic equilibrium between male and female, between endless love and restricting boundaries (respectively: the Sefirot Hesed and Din), and results in a cosmic harmonic state of felicitous joy: “All these raise the holy throne, conveying her above to unite with her husband, to be present with her in supernal glory […] and the wife is united with her Husband, so that all become one; then, joy of all” (Zohar II 197b).

Indeed, Hildegard’s visions are suffused with erotic motifs, attributed mostly to Sapientia and Caritas, the latter described, for example, as God’s lover, visiting his wedding bed, knowing all of God’s secrets and exposing herself in all her beauty (Newman 1987, p. 50). As is now well known, this kind of erotic and sexual discourse became increasingly dominant during the thirteenth century, in beguine literature, and elsewhere (McGinn 1998; Newman 1995; Beer 1993).

Another kind of erotic and sexual love related to the divine female is highly prevalent in the Zohar, and includes the many depictions of sexual coupling of the divine male and female, with the human male sage or sages arousing and enhancing the divine coupling, and finally participating in it, as in the following:

Desire of the female toward the male is aroused only when a spirit enters her and she gushes fluids toward the upper, masculine fluids. Similarly, the Congregation of Israel arouses desire toward the blessed Holy One only by the spirit of the righteous entering her. Then fluids flow from within Her toward fluids of the male, all becoming one desire, one cluster, one nexus. Rapture, total rapture!

(Zohar I 60b; see also II 124b, III 21b, III 287a)

Here, and in many other Zoharic passages, the Shekhina is clearly seen as an erotic figure per se, and here she is also seen as the one arousing the male to conjugate with her. In general, the divine female figures enjoy relations of utmost intimacy with the male God. This is a strong motif which is recurrent in texts focused on Sapientia, Caritas and Povertas. In the Scivias Hildegard writes that Sapientia does not reveal herself fully to the ones seeking her, since she reveals her secrets in their entirety solely to God (Newman 1987, p. 48; this is of course dependent on images from biblical wisdom literature, see Newman 2003, pp. 192, 198; this must also be compared to the very famous passage in the Zohar II 99a-b). As for Love in the beguine literature, Minne, her closeness to God, and the physical and emotional intimacy with him, are described with much detail in the writings of vernacular authors as the beguines, or, for example, by Lamprecht of Regensburg in his Tochter Syon (Keller 2000, pp. 112–5; Newman 2003, pp. 158–59; Barr 2020, pp. 139–75).

A very close loving relationship was also believed to exist between God and Povertas (Brown 2022, p. 298). In the Sacrum commercium, God not only loves and desires Poverty above anything else–which makes him abandon heaven and follow her (Sacrum commercium 10 [532], 16 [534])–he also trusts her with his royal seal, making her de facto heaven’s gatekeeper. Their love, unique closeness and mutual confidence is thus described:

For who would not willingly adore the footprints of the feet of you [Is. 60 14] to whom the Lord of majesty so humbly stooped, to whom he so intimately united himself, to whom he clung with such love?

(Armstrong et al. 1999, vol. 22, p. 536)

Such intimacy between the male God and the Shekhina is also very characteristic of the Zoharic conceptions. Interpreting the “love sickness” of the bride in the Songs, it is said that no one is closer to God than the Congregation of Israel, namely the Shekhina, and that God is closely acquainted with all her whereabouts (Zohar I 242a).

2.10. Providence, Reprobation and Retribution

As God’s closest mate, the divine female is often seen as his proxy for various matters. From this ensues another prominent aspect of the divine female which is dependent both on her closeness to God as well as to the perception of her as an agonizing figure. The divine female is linked to moral dangers and even to actual sin, and simultaneously also to reprobation and just retribution. This vein clearly stems from biblical Sapientia, who exhorts men to repent and lead a just life which she promises to reward, or otherwise–punishment. Hildegard fed on this notion, as can be seen in the Scivias, in the text as well as the accompanying drawings, probably made under her guidance (Newman 1990). In one of these, a female figure is depicted surrounded with figures of righteous and sinning men, wearing an expression combining compassion and dread, identified by Hildegard with divine providence and retribution (Newman 1987, pp. 46–47). In the Liber divinorum operum (part III, fifth vision, pp. 440–41), a female divine figure, self-identified as “God’s Justice,” mournfully declares that her crown has been darkened due to the faithless “errant minds,” since they “do not look upon me with that clarity with which I have come forth from God,” which also causes her robe to be “spattered with the dust of the earth,” a motif very reminiscent, again, of Natura’s torn dress. Povertas is also described as a queen who was put in charge of ruling over God’s servants exercising just retribution, and she accordingly keeps them on the right track and away from sin (Armstrong et al. 1999, vol. 56, p. 550). Hadewijch, in her poems, elaborates on another aspect of this, namely the double faceted character of Love, a trait linked by her to Love’s agonizing nature, and sometimes even to her whimsiness (Hadewijch of Brabant 1998, vol 3, p. 57). Here, Love causes men pleasure and inflicts suffering upon them according to their spiritual stand:

The strong she makes infirm/And returns the ill to full health/She cripples the straight-limbed/And heals him who was wounded.

(Hadewijch of Brabant 1998, p. 199; see also pp. 49, 67)

Within the Christian context, certain female divine figures are related either to reprobation or to mercy and reward. The former type is primarily identified with Mary, seen as Mater Misericordiae. Specifically for our purpose, one of Mary’s most popular attributes is noteworthy–namely the gathering of the believers under her wings, not only in iconography but also in statues of opened virgins, which, once opened, illustrate the concept of encompassing all the believers under her wings, or more abstractly–sides, very vividly (Newman 2003, pp. 41, 269). The depiction of a winged female divine figure is also identified with Ecclesia, with the believers situated on top of her wings, as can be seen in the famous drawing of the winged Ecclesia from the Scivias (Hildegard of Bingen 1990, Scivias II.5, Rupertsberg manuscript (now lost), ca. 1165, Newman 2003, p. 42). Also, regarding Love, in Godfrey of St. Victor’s Microcosmos, her wings, depicted as cherub-style wings, are described in detail and discussed in terms of the meaning of their number, order and allegorical sense (Godfrey of St. Victor, Microcosmos 204 (Feiss 2011, p. 315)). This motif is highly reminiscent of that of the wings of the Shekhina, familiar to us already in rabbinic literature with the wings believed to be sheltering converts to Judaism, and this motif recurs in the Middle Ages in the Zohar (Zohar I 215b, 95a). Indeed, this image seems strikingly akin to that of Ecclesia or Caritas sheltering the believers under their wings. In the Zohar, the wings of the Shekhina also mark the borders of divine presence and revelation (Zohar II 78b, III 35a), thus literally expressing the notion of the word Shekhina as God’s presence. In the other direction, that of reprobation and punishment, Natura seems to be the most dominant representative figure. Particularly in Alain de Lille’s De Planctu Naurae, she laments the misdeeds of men, mainly their sexual transgressions (Wetherbee 1972, pp. 188–210; Newman 2003, pp. 62, 67).

Many of these notions appear also regarding the Shekhina in the Zohar. First of all, the Shekhina is double faceted in this respect: since she depends on the male for divine grace, she constantly sways from fullness to emptiness. In addition, since she merely mirrors the religious state of her people, she is often thrown from grace to misery and exile. For example:

When the righteous abound in the world, the Congregation of Israel emits a fine fragrance and is blessed by the Holy King and her face shines. But when the wicked abound in the world, the Congregation of Israel, as it were, does not emit fragrance, and she tastes of the bitter “other side”.

(Zohar III 74a)

The Shekhina is seen both as sinning and scolding, as punisher and punished, almost interchangeably. A very powerful Zoharic image depicts the state of exile of the Shekhina as the laying of her private parts exposed, a situation which causes misery to herself and, at the same time, punishes her people and compels them to act and correct their ways (I 27b; see also II 125a). Simultaneously, she is also seen as a divine messenger to men, simply informing them of their guilt by inflicting misery upon them (Zohar III 23b) as an incentive to repent.

3. Discussion: Some Methodological Remarks

As we have seen, the literary figure of the Shekhina in the Zohar shares some of the prominent characteristics attributed to other female divine figures featuring in late medieval literature. To these, several considerations should be added. I will first touch upon a few points regarding religious structures and literary conventions and then address the question of the dissimilarities between the literary figure of the Shekhina and those of the Christian figures discussed here.

First, the religious needs which seem to have stimulated the engagement with these female figures in this period seem quite comparable in the Christian and Jewish contexts (a similar claim on thirteenth century Castile, from a different perspective, was made by Koren 2017, p. 226). Regarding the Shekhina, it has been suggested that the growing engagement with her figure in this period was enhanced by the weakening of the personal figure of God, a phenomenon brought about by the introduction of philosophical approaches to God as a detached and transcendent abstract concept (a recent example: Weiss 2015, feeding on earlier insights regarding the Sefirot as a whole, for example Scholem 1987). Regarding the Christian context, Newman presumed that the female divine figures allowed for a more personal relation to the Godhead in this period (Newman 2003; regarding Mary in this period, see: Johnson 1987). Second, a point already made by Arthur Green regarding the Shekhina and addressed by several scholars regarding the Christian authors, a female divine figure allows male believers, the majority of religious authorship among Christians and totality thereof among Jews, to comfortably accommodate for heterosexual erotic relations with the divine. This seems equally relevant for both religious contexts (Bynum 1982; Green 2002).

Next, from the literary perspective, we are looking at a multifaceted phenomenon: not only are we facing a variety of interconnected designations, personalities, and characteristics of these female divine figures, but even within one ‘single’ figure and within one single corpus, these concepts are variegated and interrelated. The most conspicuous example in this respect is probably Hildegard’s visions, where we are often perplexed as to the identity, so to speak, of the figures she describes. Interestingly, a similar literary reality is characteristic of the various Zoharic descriptions of the Shekhina (Abrams 2007, pp. 32–41; Koren 2017, p. 237). Here too we see a variety of designations (Shekhina, congregation of Israel, bride, female, inferior mother, and others) that, although these do not refer to completely independent personalities or figures, still should not be dismissed as mere synonyms. To this we should add the genuine round and multifaceted character of the literary figure of the Shekhina, often encompassing contradicting attributes, as part of one heterogeneous literary personality.

A second point related to the literary perspective has to do with genre. Perhaps the most important scholarly observation made regarding the Zohar in the last generation has to do with acknowledging the literary qualities of this Kabbalistic corpus, a literary masterpiece which cannot be fully understood otherwise. The Zohar’s preoccupation with a female divine figure should also be considered in light of this. Regarding the Christian corpus, Newman remarked that we ought not be surprised to find treatments of the subject of female divine figures in treatises considered more ‘literary’ and ‘vernacular,’ whether in genre, language, or style, because this kind of religious tendencies are more likely to thrive in areas of the religious world which, albeit orthodox, are less institutionalized and dogmatic (Newman 2003, pp. 49–50, see also pp. 294–317). I find this formulation remarkably befitting the Zoharic literature itself as well. Although we are still unable to provide a full historical account on the way this vast anonymous literary corpus came to be, what we do know surely points out that it was not a product of one single author belonging to what could be called as a ‘formal’ Jewish elite, although given the obvious differences in the life conditions between Jews and Christians in this period, I am using these terms quite loosely (compare Idel 1990).

As to the dissimilarities between the literary and theological formations of the Shekhina and the Christian figures, it must be stressed again that as we were not looking for identity between the sources, differences and variation are expected and natural. That said, one essential difference between the sources which is worth pausing on is the quality of personification of the female divine figures, namely what is usually referred to regarding the Christian sources as allegory, and in the Zohar–its mythical or symbolic nature. It is noteworthy that although within the Jewish context the presentation of the Shekhina in the Zohar is considered highly personified, in fact it is clearly less so in comparison to what we find in the various Christian sources. This seems due not only to the fact that the Christian literature consists, partly, of records of visions, but primarily to other factors: firstly, the prominence of visual art in the Christian religious world vis à vis the nearly lack thereof in the Jewish one, not only in terms of art and architecture, but also the famous and influential material included in the manuscripts of the treatises discussed here. To this we should also add the clear greater impact of secular literature, mainly of the courtly love genres, on the Christian religious discourse (Newman 1995, pp. 137–80; 2003, pp. 145–46; Murk-Jansen 1998, pp. 89–112). Particularly, a fascinating question well worth of a thorough investigation which still awaits is to what extent has courtly literature left its mark on Jewish authors in this period, and particularly on the authorship of the Zohar.

A final methodological remark: the different manners in which Jews and non-Jews perceived of female divine figures, were in each and every historical context based on contemporary gender concepts regarding women and femaleness. The figures of God’s presence (Shekhina), Love (Caritas or Minne), Poverty (Povertas) alongside other designations, are all literary descriptions of religious and cultural motifs as they were perceived by medieval people. This point seems self-evident at first glance but in fact needs to be clarified. We must remind ourselves that even regarding Mary, who was a historical figure described in the Gospel, when her figure is discussed in medieval sources, we are dealing with literary, specifically medieval, representations of Mary as a literary figure, which conform to the way she was conceived at the time, no less so than the way non-historical figures such as Natura or Shekhina were perceived (see Dronke 1980; compare Newman 2003, pp. 24–35). These female figures described in medieval literature expressed the way people conceived of the world in which they were living, and, as part of that, it also expresses these people’s gender concepts. Thus, the clear similarities between the ways Christians and Jews described female divine figures, and their strong preoccupation with female divine figures as such, should be seen, among others, as an expression of the gender discourse prevalent in this period, a discourse which to a certain extent was common to Jews and Christians. Christians and Jews alike in this period described female divine figures as related to poverty or redemption and so forth, not because, for that reason or another, one religion borrowed theological motifs from the other religion. Rather, in both religious contexts, female divine figures were described in manners which reflected common contemporary gender concepts, and this is also the reason we find so many points of similarity, albeit not identity, between the Christian and Jewish sources. In addition, occasionally one does find in both religious contexts a more concrete acquaintance with a specific motif. Such is, for instance, the example of the wing motif found both in Christian and Jewish texts.

4. Conclusions

My goal in this paper was to present the female gendering of the Shekhina in medieval Kabbalah as a piece in a larger medieval mosaic, namely the contemporary literary discourse regarding female divine figures, whose impressive “scope and pervasiveness […] in medieval writings” (Newman 2003, p. 25) has been studied thus far mainly in what regards the Christian world. My claim was that the surge in Jewish preoccupation with the gendered Shekhina in medieval Kabbalah, should be seen as expressing, among others, this theological and literary discourse. As I have shown, this discourse found its expression in this period simultaneously and independently both in the various Christian treatises describing such female divine figures as well as in Jewish Kabbalistic sources, as in the example of the Zohar discussed here. In this respect, my claim was twofold, and it had to do both with the very preoccupation with divine female gender concepts as well as with the specific traits attributed to these divine female figures in each religious context. The Shekhina is a medieval Kabbalistic concept which has its roots in the biblical notion of God as dwelling in the tabernacle. Later in rabbinic literature the Shekhina came to be understood as a personified aspect of God, one of an implied female character which became very clear, eventually, in medieval Kabbalistic literature. Similarly, the Christian female figures were all medieval developments of earlier Christian and pagan divine and quasi divine allegories (Newman 2003; compare Hutton 2022). I am therefore arguing for a link between contemporaneous increases of literary preoccupation with these female divine figures in both the Christian and Jewish contexts and not for an emergence of novel theological notions.

Expanding our literary and theological regard revealed that beyond any specific similarity (or dissimilarity) between these divine female figures, the Kabbalah and particularly the Zohar, came to be within a cultural context characterized with a strong interest in female divine figures. Moreover, despite the great literary variation within the Christian sources, as a group these female figures shared most of the main literary characteristics attributed to the figure of the Shekhina in the Zohar, including some of her sexual dimensions. Therefore, I believe that both our understanding of the Jewish preoccupation with this theological notion, which is so central to Kabbalistic thought, as well as our understanding of the general cultural atmosphere in western Europe in this period, would benefit significantly if we take this understanding into account and situate the literary Jewish preoccupation with the Shekhina within this larger context.