Shechinah שכינה

"And they shall make Me a sanctuary, and I shall dwell among them"—not "in it" but "among them," and the sages insist on the difference. The word shechinah itself does not occur in the Bible: it comes from the root "to dwell" and appears with the sages as a way of speaking about nearness without speaking of body or place.

Where it is. "Two who sit and words of Torah are between them—the Presence is between them." Where ten pray; where judgment is true; at the bedside of the sick. In none of these places is there a building.

And the chief thing. "They went into exile to Babylon—the Presence went with them; they went to Elam—the Presence went with them." This is the answer to the hardest question of our whole history: if there is no Temple, what is left. The answer is neither "nothing" nor "the Temple does not matter," but "He went with you." Hence the phrase "the exile of the Shechinah": it is not only the people who are in exile.

A caution. The Shechinah is not a separate being and not an intermediary; it is a word about Him, in so far as He is revealed. In Kabbalah the language grows bolder, and the Shechinah takes on a feminine face—the Congregation of Israel, the Sabbath bride of Lecha Dodi. The difference between these languages is great, and they should not be confused.