For the source text click/tap here: Megillah 29
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Chazal tell us our daf (Megilla 29a) that “when the Jews were exiled to Bavel, the Shechina was with them. When they were exiled to Egypt, the presence of Hashem was with them.” It is for this reason that Yaakov established the prayer of Maariv, a prayer of inspiration and faith recited during times of darkness, when clarity and confidence are challenged.
We explore how this idea of the indwelling of the Divine as a metaphor developed through the medieval and kabbalistic interpretations and gendering of the Divine as Shechina including the feminist appropriation of this myth in modernity.