Activating the Shechinah: Towards Full Expression of the Feminine By Rishe Groner, Presented at Limmud NYC, February 2017

"The three concepts of Malchut, moon and the women are comparable, albeit as manifest on different levels of creation... Malchut is, paradoxically, a passive sefirah that only contains that which the other sefirot pour into it, and is also the bridge between Atzilut and the lower worlds, transmitting to them the G-dly life force that enlivens them, actualizing God's original creative plan. there are different times when each of these functions is active: Sometimes malchut receives the flow and internalizes it, while at others, malchut lowers itself to sustain the lower worlds. Moon: During the first half of the month the moon increasingly reflects the sun's light until it is "full", after which it begins to gradually diminish. After having become completely dark, it reappears and is sanctified, signifying the beginning of a new month - Rosh Chodesh...."
- Footnote on "Feminine Faith" "L'Havin Inyan Rosh Chodesh", a Chassidic discourse by Rabbi Shmuel Schneerson of Lubavitch, translated by Rabbi Shais Taub, Kehot, Brooklyn NY, 2009
"Women are rooted in the aspect of malchut specifically, and therefore they are likened to the moon, which waxes and wanes each month, just like the feminine cycle, which every thirty days becomes "tumah" and then "kadosh". Therefore they did not receive from the Mixed Multitude (in the desert) and worship the Golden Calf, as the men did who are from the masculine universe." - "L'Havin Inyan Shel Rosh Chodesh", Rabbi Shmuel Schneerson, free translation by Rishe Groner

The curse pronounced on woman is inserted in an unfriendly spirit to justify her degradation and subjection to man. With obedience to the laws of health, diet, dress and exercise, the period of maternity should be one of added vigor in body and mind, a perfectly natural operation should not be attended with suffering. By the observance of physical and psychical laws the supposed curse can easily be transformed into a blessing. Some churchmen speak of maternity as a disability, and then thank the Magnificat in all their cathedrals around the globe. Through all life's shifting scenes, the mother of the race has been the greatest factor in civilization."
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Original Feminist Attack on the Bible, p, 25, Arno Press, New York 1974

“Not only does the female, qua matter, stand in the way of male perfection and actualization, but she herself can never rid herself of the matter that constitutes her very essence: the female qua personification of matter veils herself.
The metaphysical basis for the distinction between male and female has been well documented in recent female scholarship. We need only to reflect upon the significance of Pythagoras’s Table of Opposites that is based on his theory of number. In this Table of Opposites, the female principle is aligned with what we considered in Greek thought to be negative characteristics: unlimit, plurality, left, moving, darkness and evil, thus emphasizing the overall unsavoriness of the female principle. In general, those characteristics regarded as “better” or aligned with “perfection” are associated with the male principle, whereas those regarded as lower or “worse” are associated with the female. The opposition between male and female principles, with all its attendant moral and metaphysical implications embedded into Pythagoras’s cosmology, reappears throughout the history of Greek philosophy. Consider the many passages in Aristotle that associate the material principle with corporeality, grossness, imperfection and femaleness, as contrasted with the formal principle that is allied to incorporeality, perfection and maleness…..”
"“In the classical Rabbinic interpretations of Genesis 3, Eve is endowed with the responsibility of having introduced evil into the emerging human spehere, and she is punished for her crime by having to suffer the pangs of childbirth… In Susan Niditch’s deconstructed reading of Eve, ‘the woman herself comes to have the most earthly and the most divine of roles, conceiving, containing and nurturing new life… It is she who first dares to eat of God’s tree, to consume the fruit of the divine, thereby becoming like the angel. Niditch has attempted to reappropriate the perfection of matter, emphasizing the ability of the female to achieve a level of divinity without transcending her gender.”
Extracts from T.M Rudavsky, “To Know What Is”, p.197-198 “Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy, ed. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2004.

Among Kabbalistic customs that became particularly widespread were the holding of midnight vigils for the exile of the Shekhinah, the treating of the eve of the new moon as "a little Day of Atonement", and the holding of dusk-to-dawn vigils which were dedicated to both ordinary and mystical study, on the nights of Pentecost, Hoshanah Rabbah and the seventh day of Passover. All such ceremonies and their accompanying liturgies and texts were referred to as tikkunim, (e.g., "the tikkun of midnight" for the exile of the Shekhinah, etc.). A special atmosphere of solemn celebration surrounded the Sabbath, which was thoroughly pervaded with kabalistic ideas about man's role in the unification of the upper worlds. Under the symbolic aspect of "the marriage of King and Queen", the Sabbath was enriched by a wealth of new customs that originated in Safed, such as the singing of the mystical hymn Lekha Dodi and the recital of the Song of Songs and Chapter 31 of Proverbs ("A woman of valor who can find?") all of which were intended as meditations on the Shechinah in her aspect as God's mystical bride.
Gerschom Scholem, "Kabbalah", p. 195, Dorset Press, New York, 1974

It's the mother's task to pass on this self-valuing, self-nurturing instinct to her child, not to "mother" the child for the rest of its life...A mother who is effectively present for her child teachers her child to be attentive to, nurturing and affirming of, itself... A mother can only give what she has received. She can only teach her child to care for itself as appropriately as she cares for herself. The more that women naturally value and nurture themselves, the better mothers they can be..."
Gabrielle Roth, Maps to Ecstasy, p. 97, Nataraj Publishing, 1989

"Inanna, ancient Sumerian Goddess, played many roles for Her people. She was maiden, queen, gift giver, lover, and wife. She became a Dark Goddess when she heard the call of the Underworld, which was ruled by Her sister, Erishkigal. She passed through the seven gates and entered Her sister’s realm, naked and bowed low. She died and was reborn. But She was transformed by Her experience of the darkness, gaining maturity, depth and clarity of vision. She was required to choose an alternative to take Her place, assuring the cyclical nature of transformation. This was not an easy choice but She chose Her husband, Dumuzi. Out of all Her relations he was the only one who had not mourned Her death but instead had rejoiced in the resultant increase in his power.
One of the most well known stories about the transformative nature of this time of darkness is the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone. Demeter, Earth Goddess of Grain had a daughter, Persephone. Persephone lived in the golden glow of her Mother’s love and protection.
But like all youth she was compelled by curiosity and divine force to begin a journey of completion. Persephone was walking in a meadow one day and she saw the beautiful narcissus flower – the flower of death. As she reached down to pick the flower, the earth split open, releasing Hades, the Lord of the Underworld. Hades then took Persephone, willingly or otherwise, in a Spiral Dance into the shadows of the underworld.
During this time Demeter was wild with grief. She searched and searched for Persephone. When She learned the truth of her abduction She caused all vegetation to die and wither on the vine. Finally, with Zeus’s urging, Hades relented and released Persephone. But before She reached the Land of Living she ate six pomegranite seeds thus sealing her fate of eventual return.
Like Inanna, she returned changed. She was filled with wisdom and knowledge of existence outside of her Mother’s realm. She had learned the power of transformation; from death to rebirth, from dark to light, lost to found, chaos to clarity, fear to transcendence. And she was the one who must return to the Underworld for six months every year, recognizing the transformative power of darkness and the cyclical nature of transformation."
- Judith Shaw, "Winter Solstice: When Darkness Turns to Light", in Feminism and Religion, 21st December 2013 https://feminismandreligion.com/2013/12/21/winter-solstice-when-darkness-nurtures-light-by-judith-shaw/