Tree of life (Kabbalah)

Part of a series on
Kabbalah
Concepts Ein Sof Tzimtzum Ohr Ayin and Yesh Sefirot Four Worlds Seder hishtalshelut Tree of Life The path of the flaming sword Merkavah Jewish angelic hierarchy Shekhinah Partzufim Qlippoth Tohu and Tikun Sparks of holiness Messianic rectification Gilgul Kabbalistic astrology Gematria Notarikon Temurah Names of God in Judaism Shemhamphorasch Tzadik Tzadikim Nistarim Anthropomorphism in Kabbalah Panentheism
History Pre-Kabbalistic Jewish mysticism Tannaim Heichalot Sefer Yetzirah Chassidei Ashkenaz Medieval Bahir Toledano tradition Prophetic Kabbalah Zohar Kabbalistic commentaries on the Bible Mainstream displacement of rationalism with Kabbalah Renaissance Selective influence on Western thought Hermetic Qabalah Mysticism after Spanish expulsion Mystics of 16th-century Safed Cordoveran Kabbalah Lurianic Kabbalah Maharal's thought Popular Kabbalistic Mussar Early modern Baal Shem-Nistarim Sabbatean mystical heresies Emden–Eybeschutz controversy Immigration to the Land of Israel Traditional Oriental Kabbalists Beit El Synagogue Eastern European Judaism Hasidic Judaism / philosophy Lithuanian Jews Hasidic-Mitnagdic schism Modern Hasidic dynasties Mysticism in religious Zionism Academic interest in Jewish mysticism Non-Orthodox interest in Jewish mysticism English James Lees'
Practices Torah study Mystical exegesis Mitzvot Minhag Customary immersion in mikveh Meditation Kavanot Teshuvah Deveikut Prayer Nusach Tikkun Chatzot Tikkun Leil Shavuot Pilgrimage to Tzadik Pilgrimage to holy grave Lag BaOmer at Meron Asceticism Rosicrucianism Practical Kabbalah
People 100s Four Who Entered the Pardes Simeon bar Yochai 1100s Isaac the Blind Azriel 1200s Nahmanides Abraham Abulafia Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla Moses de Leon Menahem Recanati 1300s Bahya ben Asher 1400s 1500s Meir ibn Gabbai Joseph Karo Shlomo Alkabetz Moshe Alshich Moses ben Jacob Cordovero Isaac Luria Chaim Vital Judah Loew ben Bezalel 1600s Isaiah Horowitz Abraham Azulai 1700s Chaim ibn Attar Baal Shem Tov Dov Ber of Mezeritch Moshe Chaim Luzzatto Shalom Sharabi Vilna Gaon Chaim Joseph David Azulai Nathan Adler Schneur Zalman of Liadi Chaim Volozhin 1800s Nachman of Breslov Ben Ish Chai Shlomo Eliyashiv 1900s Abraham Isaac Kook Yehuda Ashlag Baba Sali Menachem Mendel Schneerson
Role History Torah Tanakh Prophecy Ruach HaKodesh Pardes exegesis Talmudical hermeneutics Midrash Jewish commentaries on the Bible Oral Torah Eras of Rabbinic Judaism Generational descent in Halacha Generational ascent in Kabbalah Rabbinic literature Talmudic theology Halakha Aggadah Hakira Classic Mussar literature Ashkenazi Judaism Sephardi Judaism Modern Jewish philosophies Jewish studies Topics God in Judaism Divine transcendence Divine immanence Free will Divine providence Kabbalistic reasons for the 613 Mitzvot Jewish principles of faith Jewish eschatology Primary texts
v t e

Part of a series on
Thelema
Unicursal hexagram
The Rights of Man
Holy Books and Stele The Book of the Law The Holy Books of Thelema The Stele of Revealing
Key figures Ankh-af-na-Khonsu François Rabelais Aleister Crowley Victor Neuburg Charles Stansfeld Jones Jack Parsons Wilfred Talbot Smith Jane Wolfe Karl Germer J. F. C. Fuller Grady McMurtry Marcelo Ramos Motta Marjorie Cameron Sara Northrup Helen Parsons Smith Phyllis Seckler Christopher Hyatt Kenneth Grant James Lees Nema Andahadna James Wasserman Kenneth Anger The Scarlet Women Rose Edith Crowley Mary d'Este Sturges Jeanne Robert Foster Roddie Minor Marie Rohling Leah Hirsig Leila Waddell
Core concepts One Star in Sight Great Work True Will The Abyss Magick Qabalah Holy Guardian Angel Thoth Tarot Yoga Gnostic Mass The Aeon
Methods Abrahadabra Night of Pan Liber Resh Crossing the Abyss Banishing Invocation Bornless Ritual Qaballa Sex magic Body of light Tree of life
Thelemic texts Aleister Crowley bibliography Kenneth Grant bibliography Marcelo Motta bibliography
Organizations A∴A∴ O∴A∴A∴ Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (EGC) Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) Society Ordo Templi Orientis (SOTO) Thelemic Order of the Golden Dawn Typhonian Order (TOTO)
Deities Nuit Hadit Heru-ra-ha Aiwass Therion Babalon Baphomet Chaos Ma'at
Places Boleskine House Abbey of Thelema Agape Lodge
Related topics Abramelin oil Cake of Light Choronzon Eroto-comatose lucidity Goetia Magical formulae Number of the beast Obeah and wanga Qlippoth Table of magical correspondences The Beast and Whore of Babylon Worship of heavenly bodies
v t e

The tree of life (Hebrew: עֵץ חַיִּים, romanized: ʿēṣ ḥayyim or no: אִילָן‎, romanized: ʾilān, lit. 'tree') is a diagram used in Rabbinical Judaism in kabbalah and other mystical traditions derived from it.^[1] It is usually referred to as the "kabbalistic tree of life" to distinguish it from the tree of life that appears alongside the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Genesis creation narrative and well as the archetypal tree of life found in many cultures.^[2]

Simo Parpola asserted that the concept of a tree of life with different spheres encompassing aspects of reality traces its origins back to the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the ninth century BCE.^[2] The Assyrians assigned moral values and specific numbers to Mesopotamian deities similar to those used in Kabbalah and claims that the state tied these to sacred tree images as a model of the king parallel to the idea of Adam Kadmon.^[2] However, J. H. Chajes states that the ilan should be regarded as primarily indebted to the Porphyrian tree and maps of the celestial spheres rather than to any speculative ancient sources, Assyrian or otherwise.^[3]

Kabbalah's beginnings date to the Middle Ages, originating in the Bahir^[4] and the Zohar.^[5] Although the earliest extant Hebrew kabbalistic manuscripts dating to the late 13th century contain diagrams, including one labelled "Tree of Wisdom," the now-iconic tree of life emerged during the fourteenth century.^[6]

The iconic representation first appeared in print on the cover of the Latin translation of Gates of Light in the year 1516.^[7] Scholars have traced the origin of the art in the Porta Lucis cover to Johann Reuchlin.^[8]

The tree of life usually consists of 10 or 11 nodes symbolizing different archetypes and 22 paths connecting the nodes. The nodes are often arranged into three columns to represent that they belong to a common category.^[9]

In kabbalah, the nodes are called sefirot.^[10] They are usually represented as circles and the paths (Hebrew: צִנּוֹר, romanized: ṣinnoroṯ) are usually represented as lines.^[11] The nodes usually represent encompassing aspects of existence, God, or the human psyche.^[12] The paths usually represent the relationship between the concepts ascribed to the spheres or a symbolic description of the requirements to go from one sphere to another.^[12] The columns are usually symbolized as pillars.^[13] These usually represent different kinds of moral values, electric charges, or types of ceremonial magic.^[7]

The sefirot are the ten spheres on the Tree of Life. Each sefirah (singular of sefirot) represents a different aspect of the Divine, as well as aspects of human consciousness and existence. These are, from top to bottom:^[14]

1. Keter (crown)
2. Hokhmah (wisdom)
3. Binah (intelligence)
4. Hesed (mercy)
5. Gevurah (judgement)
6. Tiferet (beauty)
7. Netsah (lasting endurance)
8. Hod (majesty)
9. Yesod (foundation of the world)
10. Malkuth (kingdom)

An eleventh sefirah, Da'at, appears in some diagrams of the tree halfway between Keter (node 1) and Tiferet (node 6).^[15]

The diagram is also used in Christian Kabbalah, Hermetic Qabalah, and Theosophy.^[16] The nodes are also associated with deities, angels, celestial bodies, moral values, single colors or combinations of them, and specific numbers.^[7]

Paolo Riccio's son, Jerome/Hieronymus, actively exchanged letters and shared his father's work with Reuchlin before publication.^[17] Thus, in the year 1516, Reuchlin's diagram came to appear on the cover of the Paolo Riccio's Latin translation of Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla's Gates of Light. The diagram only had 17 paths and, at the time, the concepts of 10 spheres and 22 letters were still distinct in the literature.^[18] In 1573, a version sketched by Franciscus Zillettus appeared in Cesare Evoli, De divinis attributis.^[19]

This version introduced several innovations that would reappear in later versions: all the spheres were of the same size, the lines became wide paths, the spheres were aligned into 3 distinct columns, Malkuth was connected to three spheres, and astrological symbols for the known celestial bodies were used in conjunction with the Hebrew names to label the spheres. However, it also had only 17 paths, albeit distributed differently. Reuchlin's version was reprinted in Johann Pistorius' compilation of 1587. Finally, several versions from unknown artists introducing 21 and 22 paths appeared in the posthumous print editions of Moses Cordovero's Pardes Rimonim between 1592 and 1609.^{[citation needed]} However, the diagrams with 22 paths lacked consistency with each other and none of them had the 22 letters.^{[20][better source needed]} Between 1652 and 1654, Athanasius Kircher published his version of the tree in Oedipus Aegyptiacus. According to 20th-century occult writer Aleister Crowley, Kircher designed his diagram in a syncretic attempt to reconcile several distinct ideas. This heavily annotated version, self-termed Sefirotic System, introduced more innovations: abstract concepts, divine names, the 22 Hebrew letters for each path, and new astrological symbols.^[21]

Between 1677 and 1684, Christian Knorr von Rosenroth published Kabbala denudata. The first volume concluded with an apparatus featuring five ilanot, or kabbalistic trees, representing various aspects of Lurianic cosmology. Four of these were based on ilanot that had been designed by Jewish kabbalists over the preceding half century; one (his figures 8–12) was designed by Knorr based on his reading of select passages of Naftali Hertz ben Yaakov Elchanan's 1648 Emek ha-melekh.^[22]

Consequently, according to contemporary students of Western esotericism (rather than to scholars of Jewish Kabbalah), two versions are now widely circulated: one where Malkuth has 1 path, owing to Reuchlin's original; and another where Malkuth has three paths, owing to several later versions; both having 22 paths in total, corresponding each to a Hebrew letter, owing to Kircher's syncretism.^[23] With the resurgence of occultism in the 19th century, many new versions appeared, but without major innovations.^[24]

According to a Chabad source, the tree of life is to be interpreted in the following way:^[25]

The tree represents a series of divine emanations of God's creation itself ex nihilo, the nature of revealed divinity, the human soul, and the spiritual path of ascent by man. In this way, Kabbalists developed the symbol into a full model of reality, using the tree to depict a map of creation.^[26]

The symbolic configuration is made of ten spiritual principles, but eleven can be shown, since Keter and Da'at are interchangeable.^[26]

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is equivalent to the ten spheres seen from the last sphere of the diagram, Malkuth, and the original tree of life is equivalent to the ten spheres seen from the middle sphere of the diagram, Tiferet.^[26]

Kabbalists believe the tree of life to be a diagrammatic representation of the process by which the universe came into being.^[26]

On the tree of life, the beginning of the universe is placed in a space above the first sphere (named "Keter" or "crown" in English). It is not always pictured in reproductions of the tree of life, but is referred to universally as Ohr Ein Sof (Hebrew: אֵין סוֹף אוֹר, romanized: endless light).^[26]

To Kabbalists, it symbolizes that point beyond which our comprehension of the origins of being cannot go. It is considered to be an infinite nothingness out of which the first "thing", usually understood by Kabbalists to be something approximating "energy", exploded to create a universe of multiple things.^[26]

Kabbalists also do not envision time and space as preexisting and place them at the next three stages on the tree of life.^[26]

First is "Keter", which is thought of as the product of the contraction of "Ein Sof" into a singularity of infinite energy or limitless light. In the Kabbalah, it is the primordial energy out of which all things are created.^[26]

The next stage is "Chokmah" (or "wisdom" in English), which is considered to be a stage at which the infinitely hot and contracted singularity expanded forth into space and time. It is often thought of as pure dynamic energy of an infinite intensity forever propelled forth at a speed faster than light.^[26]

Next comes "Binah" (or "understanding" in English), which is thought of as the primordial feminine energy, the supernal mother of the universe which receives the energy of "Chokmah", cooling and nourishing it into the multitudinous forms present throughout the whole cosmos. It is also seen as the beginning of time itself.^[26]

Numbers are very important to Kabbalists, and the Hebrew letters of the alphabet also have a numerical value. Each stage of the emanation of the universe on the tree of life is numbered meaningfully from one ("Keter") to ten ("Malkuth"). Each number is thought to express the nature of its sphere.^[26]

The first three spheres, called the "supernal" spheres, are considered to be the primordial energies of the universe. The next stages of evolution on the tree of life are considered to exist beyond a space on the tree, called the "Abyss", between the "supernals" and the other spheres, because their levels of being are so distinct from each other that they appear to exist in two totally different realities. The "supernal" spheres exist on a plane of divine energy. This is why another correspondence for "Binah" is the idea of suffering because the "supernal" maternal energy gives birth to a world that is inherently excluded from that divine union.^[26]

After "Binah", the universe begins building the materials it will need to fulfill its evolution and it creates new combinations of those materials until it is so dense that, by the stage of "Malkuth", the initial pure limitless energy has solidified into the physical universe.^[26]

Since its energies are the basis of all creation, the tree of life can potentially be applied to any area of life, especially the inner world of man, from the subconscious all the way to what Kabbalists call the higher self.^[26]

The tree of life speaks not only of the origins of the physical universe out of the unimaginable but also of humanity's place in it. Since man is invested with a mind, consciousness in the Kabbalah is thought of as the fruit of the physical world, through whom the original infinite energy can experience and express itself as a finite entity.^[26]

After the energy of creation has condensed into matter, it is thought to reverse its course back up the tree until it is once again united with its true nature, Keter. Thus the Kabbalist seeks to know himself and the universe as an expression of God and to make the journey of return using the stages charted by the spheres, until he has come to the realization he sought.^[26]

In Hermetic Qabalah, the Tree of Life is a fundamental concept and symbol that represents the structure of the universe and the spiritual and metaphysical path to enlightenment. It is often depicted as a diagram composed of ten interconnected spheres (called sephiroth) and 22 connecting paths, which together form a pattern resembling a tree.

The list of sefirot with their usual translations in Hermetic Qabalah is:^[27]

1. Kether "Crown"
2. Chokmah "Wisdom"
3. Binah "Understanding"
4. Chesed "Mercy"
5. Geburah "Severity"
6. Tiphareth "Beauty"
7. Netsach "Victory"
8. Hod "Splendour"
9. Yesod "Foundation"
10. Malkuth "Kingdom"

The 22 connecting paths on the Tree of Life represent the connections between the sephiroth. Each path is associated with a specific Hebrew letter, Tarot card, and a range of meanings and correspondences. Hermetic Qabalists see the cards of the tarot as keys to the Tree of Life. The 22 cards including the 21 Trumps plus the Fool or Zero card are often called the "Major Arcana" or "Greater Mysteries" and are seen as corresponding to the 22 Hebrew letters and the 22 paths of the Tree; the ace to ten in each suit correspond to the ten sephiroth in the four Qabalistic worlds; and the sixteen court cards relate to the classical elements in the four worlds.^[28] While the sephiroth describe the nature of divinity, the paths between them describe ways of knowing the Divine.^[29]

The path of the flaming sword (Hebrew: נתיב החרב הבוערת) refers to the flaming sword which God put to guard the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve were cast out.^[30] It is a concept in Kabbalah which represents the order in which the ten sefirot were created. The path emanates from the Ein Sof, the boundless source of divinity, begins at Kether (the crown) and ends at Malkuth (the kingdom), where the physical world manifests, and symbolizes "the logos which unifies them."^[31]

• Atziluth
• Boaz and Jachin
• Flower of life
• Qlippoth

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tree of life (Kabbalah).

• The Tree of Life in Kabbalah by Rodurago Cypheron
• Ilanot: Maps of God — a searchable descriptive catalogue of kabbalistic diagrams in manuscripts and books from Medieval Age to the 20th century, by J. H. Chajes
• The Isometric Sephiroth: The Forgotten Correspondences