In "Jewish Meditation," Rabbi
Aryeh Kaplan states that "wherever the Shekhinah
rests, there is
an enhanced ability to experience the Divine.
A description which logically
links Shekhinah to the Messianic Era is described in
"Miracles,
Mysteries, and Prayer," where Rabbi Philip S. Berg states that
Shekhinah is "the quantum collective consciousness of the entire
universe."
I believe that this consciousness must reach a critical mass of
appropriate prayer
(including thought, art and actions) on Earth to initiate the Messianic
Era.
The word for deity,
mentioned over 7000 times in the Hebrew bible,
is composed of four letters :
Yod, which stands for Father, Heh which stand for Mother,
Vav, which stands
for Son, and Heh, which stands for daughter.
Shekhinah is associated
with the Heh letter.
While it is clear that the female is given
equal importance in the written representation
of Deity in Holy Scripture, conscious acceptance of the female was nearly
eliminated
with the patriarchal takeover thousands of years ago.
As stated in Proverbs:
"Happy is the one who finds wisdom (Shekhinah)
and the one who gets understanding . . . . She is more
precious than rubies . . . .
Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand are riches and
honor.
Her ways are ways of pleasure, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree
of life
to those who lay hold to her; and happy are those who hold her fast."
It is said that Shekhinah
fled when her Jerusalem temple was destroyed,
thus Divinity
was split apart. Kabbalistic writings teach that the absence
of her feminine
spirit within the Divinity is the source of great distress and imbalance
in
the world. For many centuries, Hebrew peoples have prayed for her
return.
The most important reason
for connection with Shekhinah is the experience of true joy.
This is an
experience one has in the womb.
In current society we are taught to look
outside ourselves
for satisfaction and contentment. Our society is
experiencing
this iniquity with widespread violence, toxicity, and
disease.
To turn this around we must understand that all of our thoughts,
art forms and acts are prayers. Since prayer does work,
and since every
thought is a part of our prayers, our world reflects
the sum total of these
prayers. The Messianic Era occurs
when the common consciousness reaches the
threshold of connection
with this experience of true joy by connecting with
the essence of the
Shekhinah Within.
The first step to having
a "whole" people is a "whole" divine.