Tree of life (Kabbalah)
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| The Sefirot in Jewish Kabbalah | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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- See also Tree of life (disambiguation) for other meanings of the term.
Tree of life is a mystical concept within the Kabbalah of Judaism which is used to understand the nature of God and the manner in which He created the world ex nihilo (out of nothing). The Kabbalists developed this concept into a full model of reality, using the tree to depict a "map" of Creation. The tree of life has been called the "cosmology" of the Kabbalah.
Some believe the tree of life of Kabbalah corresponds to the Tree of Life mentioned in Genesis 2:9.
This mystical concept was later adopted by some Christians, Hermeticists, and even pagans.
[edit] Diagram of the Sephiroth
The earliest texts which describe the tree of life are the Bahir, Sefer Yetzirah, Sefer Raziel Hamelech, and—probably the most influential—the Zohar. The latter describes the tree of life as being a sort of diagram (although not necessarily a physical one) that has 10 (sometimes 11) Sephirot and 22 (sometimes 24) paths which interconnect the various Sephirot. Each Sephirah and path is said to have a different characteristic—for example, a different number, letter, physical feature, planet, etc. There is much disagreement over the attributes which each Sephirah and path possess. Even the earliest texts have major disagreements with each other and with themselves, depending on the edition.
[edit] Similarities
The Tree of Life bears many similarities to the Christian Gnostic conception of the Pleroma, emanations from the ineffable and self-originating Divine Parent that offer the best possible means of describing God. Each emanation in the Pleroma is born from a more complex emanation before it. Most notably between these two allegories is the final Sephira on the Tree, Malkuth, and the last emanation in the Pleroma, Sophia, whose fall from grace resulted in the physical world.
[edit] See also
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