The divine presence that we sense in sacred places is often reinforced by architecture and decoration that reflect our aspirations toward the heavens.A sacred place requires a clear spiritual focus and separation from its physical surroundings.The word "temple" (and the associated activity of contemplation) -- Latin templum --means a piece of land marked off from ordinary uses and dedicated to the divine.Sacred structures provide expressions of, rather than merely a shell for, numinous experience
Since early times, the Holy Soul was known to the people of Israel as the Shekinah. She brought peace and harmony into the community, working into the "soul of the community." Shekinah also means "Divine Presence," and he most direct and immediate experience of the Holy Soul or the Shekinah is the presence of a sense of peace and harmony prevailing on the soul level – a kind of "overlighting" from the community of souls gathered together.