What Is The Meaning Behind The Tree Of Life?

May 2024 ยท 2 minute read

Discussions of Kabbalah's Tree of Life will likely leave many people scratching their head, as it's all extremely abstract. In fact, it's designed from the ground-up as a puzzle that a willing adherent spends a lifetime deciphering. But a Kabbalist wouldn't say Kabbalah is "designed" at all. They would just say, "That's the way the things are," and that Kabbalah is a tool for investigating reality. It opens the mind to deeper truths, allows people to glimpse cosmic secrets, etc., etc., rooted in the Tree of Life.

In general, Harreira describes the Tree of Life as composed of 10 nodes called "Sephiroth" that "symbolize the course that the God ascends from an infinite and unknowable being to the almighty creator of the universe." In other words, the Tree of Life is a kind of roadmap to enlightenment, and each Sephiroth is a waypoint. By starting at current human point X, people can reverse engineer the creation of the universe back to its original source: God.

Along those lines, Kabbalah Center says, "The Tree of Life is represented as ten stations of descending light that originate with the creator. Each of these stations, which are called Sephirot (Sephira, singular), is a cosmic principle and is approached through color, imagery, and sound." These principles relate to the 22-letter Hebrew alphabet, the 22 Major Arcana cards in the tarot, numerology, astrology, the chakra-like placement of Sephiroth throughout the body, and more. Like we said: It's complicated.

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