Zohar 2:97b

 

What is [the meaning of] “and the spirit returns?” This is the Shekhinah, which is the holy spirit. When the Shekhinah sees in the ten sojourns that she must take that Israel does not want to return in repentance before the blessed holy One, the Other Side rules over the holy land, as it has been established by the comrades. Come and see- The spirit of a man who is worthy is crowned in the image in the Garden of Eden below, and every Sabbath and new month the spirits are crowned, and they are divested [of the body] and they ascend above. Just as the blessed holy One acts in relation to the supernal, holy soul above, so too he acts in relation to that spirit below in the Garden of Eden below, which rises before him. He says, “This is the spirit of the body of so-and-so.” Immediately, the blessed holy One crowns that spirit in several crowns, and he delights in her.

Translated by Elliot Wolfson in “Occultation of the Feminine and the body of Secrecy in Medieval Kabbalah,” in Rending the Veil- Concealment and Revelation of Secrets in the History of Religions, 113-154. Edited by Elliot R. Wolfson, New York and London- Seven Bridges Press, 1999.

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