the Shekhinah below just as the Shekhinah above

Sod, the passage’s core doctrine: the indwelling presence is one reality manifest at both ends of the divine descent — above, within the structure of the powers, and below, in the world. The students’ worry (that ascent and descent are asymmetrical, the descent swift and the ascent laboured) is answered by the Shekhinah’s presence at both poles: ‘from below to above and from above to below’ is ‘one and the same.’ Scholem, Gershom 1987

the light emanated from the first light, which is Wisdom

Sod: the Shekhinah is defined as light emanated from ‘the first light, which is Hokhmah’ (Wisdom, the second sefirah). The lowest grade thus derives its light, by a chain of emanation, from near the top — the proto-form of the doctrine in which Malkhut (the Shekhinah) receives the overflow of all the grades above. ‘The first light’ is read as Hokhmah rather than the wholly-hidden Keter.

the whole earth is full of His glory (Isaiah 6:3)

Remez: Isaiah’s seraphic ‘the whole earth is full of His glory’ (kevodo) is read as the Shekhinah surrounding and pervading all — the glory (kavod) that fills the world is the indwelling presence ‘below.’ The verse is the scriptural anchor for the below-as-above claim.

the king with seven sons

The closing mashal: a king sets seven sons each in his place and bids them sit one upon another; the lowest refuses to sit at the bottom or be far from the father, and the king answers that he surrounds and watches them all day. Read forward, the seven sons are the seven lower powers (the sefirot of construction), and the Shekhinah is ‘among them’ — the surrounding, sustaining presence that keeps the structure standing. Sod, surfaced in apparatus.

shekhinah

Selected sense: divine-presence

Active senses: divine-presence, the-indwelling, malkhut, the-feminine-aspect

Rationale: The passage is about the Shekhinah (שכינה) as a divine grade, ‘below just as above’; the technical register is foregrounded, so the transliteration is kept in the body. Identified here as the emanated light and (in the developed Kabbalah) with Malkhut, the tenth sefirah.

Lexicon: lexicon/shekhinah

chokhmah

Selected sense: wisdom

Active senses: wisdom, the-supernal-point, abba

Rationale: The Shekhinah’s light is ‘emanated from the first light, which is Hokhmah’ (חכמה) — Wisdom, the second sefirah, as the source from which the lowest grade’s light derives. Rendered ‘Wisdom’.

Lexicon: lexicon/chokhmah

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