The questions are:
- Is the Shekinah God or not?
- If not, then what is it?
- And why did any Jew ever think it was God?
- Is the Ruach HaKodesh God or not?
- If not what is it?
- And why did any Jew ever think it was God?
- If each is God, are there three Gods or one?
- Me? I say each is God, the same God. There is only one God: Father, Shekinah, and Ruach haKodesh. But, that said, I'm nobody and certainly not an authority on a speculative Jewish Trinity.
I've been pondering this all morning. Man, is this trudging into deep kabbalah territory (of which I know nothing of).
Okay, here's what I know (hopefully I won't botch this up too much):
The shechinah
is God - it's a term to signify His presence in this world.
At the same time, you have a concept which you've mentioned already - tzimtzum - how does that fit into all of this? It's very complicated. One thing's clear: God in His infinity can't be contained in one physical object/place.
Now, to Ruach Hakodesh:
That's definitely not God. Ruach Hakodesh is a term that denotes that "tube" thing I mentioned - usually used to define a weaker level connection than that of nevuah (again, badly translated into prophecy in English. Nevuah means 'clear sight' and defines the highest level of connection a person can have with God).
Moses wasn't a walking, talking, piece of Ruach Hakodesh. He
had Ruach Hakodesh in that he had the highest sort of nevuah capabilities of any man. "And He said: 'Hear now My words: if there be a prophet among you, I the LORD do make Myself known unto him in a vision, I do speak with him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so; he is trusted in all My house; with him do I speak mouth to mouth, even manifestly, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the LORD doth he behold..." (Num. 12:6-8)
To tie this all together, I think the early Christians' mistake was so:
They were somewhat foolish or ignorant in their understanding of these concepts. It's clear that these concepts are very abstract, I mean just try to figure out how Shechinah and Tzimtzum go together, and you see that it's completely mind-boggling. Even to attempt to explain a bit of these concepts demands usage of various parables and metaphors, which already diminishes the deepness of these concepts.
Recall that Jesus came from the Galilee which was rampant with Hellenistic Jews. Those Jews may have held beliefs that these various concepts
can really be described in
physical terms, that is - that
these divine concepts are really physical in some sense, same as Jupiter and Mercury are physical divine entities. Remember those "tubes"? Those aren't really tubes. The term is used for lack of a better way to explain the idea. But Galilean Hellenistic Jews may have thought those are really invisible tubes that come down from God. Much like the childish view that if the Tanach describes God's anger with His "nose smoking", then God must really have s nose that smokes when He's angry! Which is ridiculous. The term is used so that humans can have some semblance of understanding God's ways in this world.
We have no clear proof (to my knowledge) that any of the disciples had real scholarly background. All they may have known about kabbalistic concepts were fragments they heard here and there, and decided they were good enough to be able to piece them together into a seemingly coherent theology.
To their credit, they weren't entirely at fault: a. Hellenism had been rampant in Israel since the time of the Greeks. b. They (the disciples) were probably part of the caste of Jews known in Halacha as "Amei Ha'aretz" - people of the land/earth - boorish, unlearned, commoners (not necessarily in a royal/not royal sort of way). One of the most famous faults of the people in the time of the Second Temple was that the scholars looked down at the amei ha'aretz in a very disrespectful manner. Therefore, it would make sense that there may never have been a scholar around who was willing to take the time to properly explain the concepts. c. No Shechinah in Israel since centuries earlier means they had no idea what that even felt like. Really, anybody could have come up to them and said: "I'm a walking manifestation of the Shechinah", and they wouldn't have been wiser.
And then? And then came Jesus. A seemingly smart, seemingly learned, charismatic individual who was willing to take up these people as students. Did he have real knowledge of these concepts? I have absolutely no idea. Did he teach these things to his students? Again, I don't know. But hey, he gave them some attention. That would've been enough to spark in them the thought that they could piece together all of these concepts, all f these teachings, into a new theology.