The Tree of Life is the central ideogram of the Kabbalah. In it's modern form, it dates to the work of Isaac the Blind, in the 12th century. However, its place in the greater Judaic/Kabbalistic traditon goes back far further. In the Garden of Eden, we are told, there grew two trees. The Tree of Life, and the Tree of the Knowlege of Good and Evil. Traditionally, it was eating from the Tree of Knowlege of Good and Evil that resulted in the expulsion from Eden, and the loss of the Tree of Life. What does the Kabbalah teach us in this story?
Eden is spoken of as a garden. What is it that distinguishes a garden from the wilderness without? A garden is tended, cared for, domesticated. From this, we learn that Eden is that place where man is as a child; it is the state of perfect union with the Almighty. But, in this union, man was incomplete, not yet fully-grown. So it was that God sent the serpent so that Eve should eat of the apple. "God sent the Serpent?" you may ask. "But I always learned that eating the apple was a sin." However, remember that until that time when Eve ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowlege of Good and Evil, she was completely without such knowlege. One who cannot know Good and Evil cannot sin, because he cannot make a choice between Good and Evil, knowing neither. So it can only be that Eve, who was One with the Almighty, desired Knowlege of Good and Evil becasue it was the will of her Creator that she should taste of it.
"But," you may continue, "if it was not a sin to eat of the fruit why was it that Eve and Adam were cast from the Garden, and set to wander the Wyld Darkness?" The expulsion from the Garden is so often looked at as Divine retrubution, that I think it's key point is missed. It was not that Adam and Eve were cast from the Garden, bt rather that, in eating of the Fruit, and aquiring Knowlege of Good and Evil, the Garden was cast from them. It was no longer possible to live in a tended Garden, being in perfect union with the Creator, knowing only as the Creator knew, being only as the Creator was. Adam and Eve had aquired sentiene, a Knowlege of Good and Evil, and the Wild World became as their domain.
While we were in the Garden, the fruit of the Tree of Life was our sustanance. We have spoken before of how the Tree of Life is the mechanism and the process by which the emanation of Life, Light, Love, and Creation flows from God into Man and into World. In the Garden, this was our natural food, it was our only choice, and so we could do nothing but sup thereof. In the wilderness of the world, the Tree of Life became as a memory to us. However, the Tree of Life is still available to us, and is still the process and the method of emanation form above, which we each still have eternal and imediate access to. Moreover, it is the path to a new garden, a garedn tended by man. This Garden is union with the Almighty without the loss of self. It is eating of the Tree of Life, partaking of her mystery, and climbing in her branches which leads us to the new paradism, the Garden of Eden reborn in the individual heart.
The first way we speak of the Tree of Life is as a pathway of emanation from the Almighty. So, it is with the Almight that we must begin. However, what place is this, but no place at all? Rumi teaches us that Allah is that which is without quality. Codovera teaches that the Almighty is that which can be expressed only in negatives. There is nothing I can say, and nothign you can learn. Th Truth here can only be known, but never conceived.
From here, we move next thru the veils which separate the unspeakable to the Word. There are three such veils. The highest of these is known as Ain (also Ayin or Ein). It means literally, "without" or nothingness. It is such that themost we can know abotu God is to know Nothing. The next veil is called Ain Soph, "without limit" or infinity. Before we can know Nothing, it is necessary to know All, and all proceeds from Nothing, which proceeds from the ineffeable God. Next we come into Ain Soph Aur, or "Limitless Light" It is form Nothing and from the Ineffable, thru Nothingness and thru All that the Light of Emanation breaks, and descends into the world, creating and nourishing all it touches.
We now come to the Tree proper, the path of emanation thru the World , from the Crown of Glory to the Kingdom of Earth. The tree is compsed of 10 (plus one) spheres, or "sephiroth". Sephiroth means emanation. Connecting these are 22 paths. These are corelated with the 22 letters of the hebrew alphabet, and form there with the 22 cards of the major arcana. We will be discussing both the 10 sephiroth and the 22 paths in the lessons entitled "Splendour" and "Victory".