How awesome is this place! This is none other than G-d’s abode, and this is the gate of the heavens.[2]
Someone aske the Nodah B’Yehudah[3] two questions: What, exactly, is the Shechinah? And how is it possible for it to be “exiled,” as Chazal[4] teach?
The Nodah B’Yehudah chides his interlocutor for asking the question! Better you should follow the sage advice, “Of that which is beyond you, do not inquire.”[5] But as long as you asked…
He proceeds to offer what he believes is a convincing approach, based on the words of the Rambam.[6] He shows how the word shachan ordinarily means that something stays situated somewhere or in something for a protracted period of time. By semantic extension to Hashem, it means “a created Light in some place, or the direction of steady providence over something.”
The Nodah B’Yehudah opines that these two phenomena are one and the same. Hashem’s providence is not a “thing.” But it always leads to the display of a great light, i.e. consequences that follow from His hashgachah.[7] When Klal Yisrael acts as they are commanded, His providence is directed primarily at Israel. Eretz Yisrael is the place that “Hashem’s eyes are always upon it.” [8] The ohr created by this providence is great and powerful; it overflows to the rest of the world. We are the primary beneficiaries, and others draw from us.
When Klal Yisrael sins, however, Hashem’s providential focus shifts, as it were, to the rest of the world. The ohr that follows is directed at those nations; Klal Yisrael is supplied along with them and through them. His hashgachah is thus “exiled;” both providence and the consequences thereof move from the Jewish people to all others.
To me it seems that Rambam meant something different. The two – hashgachah and the emanating ohr – are not the same. When the beis hamikdosh stood, it was the locus of Hashem’s hashgachah. That providence extended to all of the land of Israel. Shechinah meant that hashgachah. The destruction of the beis hamikdosh and the exile of the people changed this. It could no longer be stated that Hashem’s providence was localized to and concentrated in a particular place. Instead, Hashem supplied ohros as needed to provide for the Jews wherever they were. This moving from concentrated hashgachah to localized ohr is what Chazal mean when they speak of the Shechinah going in to exile with Hashem’s people.
In our pasuk, Yaakov senses the difference between the two. He wakes up after his dream, sensing that he is at ground zero of the constancy of Hashem’s hashgachah. His dream was not an emanation of a created ohr. No. Here, at the makom hamikdash, he was close to full Elokus. This was truly the “house of G-d,” as it were. And it functioned as the gateway to heaven – the pathway to the heavenly beis hamikdosh
- Adapted from Divrei Shaul, by Rav Yosef Shaul Nathanson, the Shoel U-Meshiv ↑
- Bereishis 28:17 ↑
- Responsa Nodah B’Yehudah, Tinyana, Orach Chaim #107 ↑
- Megilah 29a ↑
- Ben Sira 13:19; Chagiga 13a ↑
- Moreh Nevuchim 1:25 ↑
- This differs greatly from the approach taken by the classic commentators to the Moreh. See, especially, the Abarbanel. He argues that the two are quite different. Hashem’s providence is not tangible, and can apply to a wide area. The light that Rambam speaks of is a localized, observable phenomenon Hashem creates to mark His presence, so to speak. The latter is typical of the way His presence was observed at Sinai; the former, which speaks of hashgachah, is what the Torah means when it says that Hashem promises v’shachanti/I will dwell in the midst of the Bnei Yisrael. ↑
- Devarim 11:12 ↑