179 |
CHAPTER 17 Hand in hand, Emmanuel walked with Zina through the dark woods of Stanley Park. "You are myself," he said. "You are the Shckhina, the immanent Presence who never left the world." He thought, The female side of God. Known to the Jews and only to the Jews. When the primordial fall took place, the Godhead split into a transcendent part separated from the world; that was En Sof. But the other part, the female immanent part, remained with the fallen world, remained with Israel. These two portions of the Godhead, he thought, have been detached from each other for millennia. But now we have come together again, the male half of the Godhead and the female half. While I was away the Shekhina intervened in the lives of human beings, to assist them. Here and there, sporadically, the Sliekhina remained. So God never truly left mankind. "We are each other," Zina said, "and we have found each other again, and again are one. The split is healed." "Through all your veils," Emmanuel said, "beneath all your forms, there lay this . . . my own self. And I did not recognize you, until you reminded me." "How did I accomplish that?" Zina said, and then she said, "But I know. My love of games. That is your love, your secret joy: to play like a child. To be not serious. I appealed to that; I woke you up and you remembered: you recognized me." Such a difficult process," he said. "For me to remember. I thank you." She had abased herself in the fallen world all this time, while he had left; the greater heroism was hers. Staying with man in all man's inglorious conditions . . . down into the prison with him, Emmanuel thought. Man's beautiful companion. At his side as she is now at mine. "But you are back," Zina said. "You have returned." "That is so," he said. "Returned to you. I had forgotten that you existed. I only recalled the world." You the kind side, he thought; the compassionate side. And I the terrible side that arouses fear and trembling. Together we form a unity. Separated, we are not whole; we are not, individually, enough.
|