Shekhinah

The old Hebrew word shekhinah is the word for Divine Presence which signifies the beauty and light of the Divine Reality that exist in and behind all things. This presence is everywhere, though hidden from sensory awareness except through the mirroring patterns of it that we see all around us in the natural world.

At the beginning of Hebrew tradition this shining Presence existed for the people to see, but they were afraid of it, so God "hid it" in the Ark of the Covenant which was veiled in the old traveling Tabernacle and later in the Holy of Holies in the Temple in Jerusalem. All of this is used as profound religious symbolism not for an external structure, but for the inner temple of our own being. Hidden in the depths of our own interior Holy of Holies is an Ark where the divine beauty and Shekhinah still shines.

We can go there and know that place.