Releasing the Glory of God

from The Shape of Things to Come, Innovation and Mission for the 21st-Century Church by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch


"One of the most wonderful metaphors in Jewish mysticism is the rabbinical teaching on the Shekinah ("God's glory"). In the typical playful way Jewish theology was presented, the Shekinah gains a personality and usually takes the form of a woman. She is metaphorically portrayed as God's wife, but she is in exile, i.e., God and his glory have been tragically separated through the fall. The separation is one of a cosmic crash in which God's glory was scattered into myriad sparks and caught up in all created matter. The holy sparks are now imprisoned in all things. Even the lowest of created things have the holy sparks in them.

The remarkable aspect of this Jewish teaching is the view that it is our holy action- that is, action filled with holy intent and directed toward God- that that actually free the holy sparks ensnared in all things allowing the exiled Shekinah to journey back to her Husband, namely, God. God and his glory are joined together again when people act in holiness. Says Martin Buber, 'The Shekinah is banished into concealment; it lies tied, at the bottom of every thing, and is redeemed in every thing by man, who, by his own vision or his deed liberates the thing's soul.' Isaac Bashevis Singer, the Nobel laureate who wrote marvelous novels exploring aspects of Jewish mysticism, said that "when man chooses virtue, he strengthens all the dimensions of life. Angels...look forward to a man doing a good deed, since this brings joy and strength to the entire world. A good deed helps God and the Divine Presence to unite. A sin, on the other hand, evokes all the gloom in the world.'

Now, without taking the teaching as literal truth (most of the rabbis don't!), this is a very helpful way of viewing the mission of God's people in the world. When we act redemptively and in holiness, we fan into flames the creational purpose that lies at the heart of all tings in God's world- we liberate God's glory that lies in it. And in doing so we bring God's glory. Again the post-Jesus Jewish mysticism perspective brings the focus of faithfulness to the whole of life in all its concreteness- the very element missing in so much Christendom proclamation and action. All things have elements of the sacred in them and should be respected- people, animals, the environment, even our technologies. The founder of Hassidism, Rabbi Israel Ball Shem Tov, said that 'one should even have mercy on his tools and all he possesses because one should have mercy on the holy sparks.'

There's a story about  a certain Rabbi Jacob, a deeply godly and zealous but somewhat ascetic man. One day he has a vision where he meets a woman who symbolizes the exiled glory of God, trying to make her way back to God. The woman is covered from head to ankles in a long black veil. Only her feet are bare and they are caked with dust and blood from long traveling on harsh roads in her exile.

The woman addresses the rabbi, saying, 'I am weary unto death, for people have hunted me down. I am sick unto death, for they have tormented me. I am ashamed, for they have denied me. You, [you humans] are the tyrants who keep me in exile. When you are hostile to one another, you hunt me down. When you plot evil against each other, you torment me. When you slander each other, you deny me. In doing these things you send your fellow humans into exile and so you send me into exile. And for you Rabbi Jacob, do you realize that while you intend to follow me with your religious rituals you in fact estrange yourself from me all the more? One cannot love me [The Shekinah] and abandon people.'

And she concludes, "Dream not that my forehead radiates heavenly beams. And has haloes all around it. My face is that of the created being.'

She then raises her veil from her face, and he recognizes the face as that of a neighbor."