Galut, Geula, and the Status of Women

Galut is a state of separation. The Jewish People are astray, fractured, lost from our purpose and detached from the setting within which our mission can be fulfilled. Our journey is a harrowing obstacle course, to be sure, but a journey we believe will ultimately take us to geula – that state of attachment, oneness, completion. At that time, the world will know only perfect peace and unity, down to the workings of nature itself.¹

That state of perfection will bridge the cosmic gap of galut. On the one hand, there is the Higher world, Divine workings, lofty ideas and cosmic truths; on the other lies actualization, physicality, expression of potential, and realization of everything beautiful.² Those two categories are referred to in kaballah as male and female respectively.

The male expression is easily manifest and largely dominant. It is unchanging and uninspired, never blemished and never growing. The female component is the exiled one: Tedious, painful, slowly evolving, it is the process best personified by pregnancy and childbirth. It is a deeply necessary phase, to be sure, as this world was created only to bring expression of those Higher realities to the mundane. For untainted truth, Hashem has the Heavens. For this world to be completed, He created the female capacity. 

With Redemption so close, let us explore some ways in which the feminine energy in the world is coming to fuller expression. This by no means indicates that these following processes are inherently G-dly or virtuous, only that they reflect the spiritual energy of the time. As the feminine component on every level of Creation rises to its full stature, the world is approaching the state of total completion: Geula.

The Shechinah in Exile

Back before the Jewish Nation was exiled, the Mikdash was the dwelling place for the Shechinah³; Hashem rested among us, and the world knew peace. The Shechina is how we refer to G-d’s manifestation as He dwells among us, simply understood as the Divine Presence. Using this expression denotes G-d operating in the female modality.

Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai says, “Come and see how beloved the Jewish people are before the Holy One, Blessed be He. At every place they were exiled, the Divine Presence went with them.”⁴ Hashem Himself does not reside in the physical world, nor is He exiled; but the Shechinah, the revealed Presence, is very much hidden and lost.

Slowly, undetected, the Shechinah is finding Her way home. She will be returned when we return, to Her rightful place and Her role to reveal the Glory of Hashem, and then the darkness will be dispelled with the clarity of revelation – “…For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem.”⁵

The Moon in Exile

The sun is the “male” source of light: constant, powerful, dominant. The moon has no inherent light; it is the vehicle of expression for the sun, tasked to reflect its light in the night. That is the female role.

With Chava’s sin, the moon was diminished from its previous size, within which it fully contained and reflected the complete light of the sun, to the vastly compromised size we know today⁶. At the end of days, the moon will be restored to its original size⁷, through a gradual growth process not detectable to our physical senses. But each month, as we recite kiddush levana to celebrate the renewal of the moon in its micro-cycle, we pray for its complete rebirth with the geula, soon.

When this process is complete, there will be no darkness, neither physical nor spiritual, as the moon will once again shine with her full light. Night and day will be one, for we will have arrived at unity.

Relationships in Exile

Chava was created after Adam; indeed, she was fashioned from him, the two halves forever in pursuit of that original unity⁸. Her arrival brought to the world the first “other”, thereby introducing relationship, and so the human capacity to bond and connect is a distinctly feminine one.  The woman personifies connection, intimacy, desire, and innerness. She gives meaning and dimension to human interaction and models the giver-receiver duo within her designated roles as wife and nurturer.

Even for strictly halachic Jewry, there has been a heightened desire for the emotional aspects of avodat Hashem: hitbodedut, Jewish meditation, and kavannah, intention. While the letter of the law remains fundamental, there is relative increased focus toward Hashem as our benevolent father, and to feel His closeness in everything we do.

In exile, this power was largely lost. For most of the past two millennia, global interest remained pinned on power. Historical narratives, as much as personal ambition, sought out grandeur, adventure, recognition; societies rose and governments collapsed in the backstabbing, win-or-lose ways that personify the pursuit of power. Break the record and anything in your way.

Those are all mostly male pursuits. Recently, a new phenomenon is emerging. As a species, we have become more connective, more relationship oriented. Nationalism gives way to globalism, activism is on the rise. There is a pervasive desperation to be part of something bigger, to destroy barriers and connect to other humans for a common cause.

This also manifests in the shift within the Orthodox world. Even for strictly halachic Jewry, there has been a heightened desire for the emotional aspects of avodat Hashem: hitbodedut, Jewish meditation, and kavannah, intention. While the letter of the law remains fundamental, there is relative increased focus toward Hashem as our benevolent father, and to feel His closeness in everything we do.

The Woman in Exile

Jed Applerouth has a PhD in educational psychology. He writes, “Female students, by and large, are outperforming males at every level of education. The data illustrating this overall phenomenon is quite compelling. Girls, as a group, tend to have higher grades, take more advanced classes, graduate high school at higher rates, and participate in higher education, both undergraduate and graduate school, at higher rates. Indeed, some 70% of high school valedictorians are female.”⁹

That’s quite a feat for half of society, who, until various points in the last century, had few legal or civil rights. The women we see today are in many ways fully on par with their male counterparts in their intellectual pursuits and achievements; are we to believe that the lack of female success in academia and similar roles is merely a feature of centuries-long oppression?

The Gra explains¹⁰ that with the sin of the eitz hadaat, women were diminished in their intellectual capacities. Their ability to theorize abstract principles was reduced, with their creative powers shifting toward building homes and bearing children. But as the world moves towards perfection, women are increasingly rising to their complete cognitive prowess. 

We have trudged through the galut, keenly aware of the darkness and yet holding tight to the belief that there is a march toward completion discernible beneath the surface – the silent tread toward geula.

1. Yeshaya 11: 6-8 ↩︎
2. Seifer HaMaamarim Meluket vol. 2, p.297. ↩︎
3. Shemot 25:8 ↩︎
4. Megillah 29a ↩︎
5. Chavakuk 2:14 ↩︎
6. Chullin 60b ↩︎
7. Yeshaha 30:26 ↩︎
8. Bereishit 2: 21-22 ↩︎
9. applerouth.com/blog/troubling-gender-gaps-in-education  ↩︎
10.  Aderet Eliyahu, Bereishit 3:20 ↩︎