In the book of Genesis, man is likened to the tree of life, whose feet stand on the ground and whose head rises to the heavens. According to Kabbalah, God is infinite and inconceivable, but nevertheless, with the help of the Sefirot, one can try and understand the forms in which He is revealed in the world. In many places the Sefirot are described as a kind of “pipes” that connect our world to God and through them passes the divine abundance.
The Tree of Life chart has a hidden and deep meaning that is a source of endless inspiration and knowledge. The tree of life is one of the symbols most identified with sacred geometry – the seed of life, the flower of life, and the golden section.
The tree of life has a male side, which is the right side – crown, wisdom, kindness, beauty, eternity and a female side, which is the left side – understanding, severity, splendor, foundation, kingship.
The three upper sefirot, crown, wisdom and understanding – are named ‘head’. They differ from the other lower sefirot in their energy due to them being the center from which divine abundance descends to the lower sefirot. The lower seven are called ‘body’, because they represent emotional and practical forces.
The lower seven sefirot correspond to the Ushpizin (holy guests): Chesed (kindness) – Avraham Avinu, Gevura (severity)- Yitzchak, Tiferet (beauty) – Yaakov, Netzach (eternity) – Moshe, Hod (splendor) – Aharon, Yesod (foundation) – Yosef, Malchut (kingship) – David. The seven lower sefirot against seven metals: silver – kindness, gold – severity, copper – beauty, tin – eternity, lead – splendor, living silver – foundation, iron – kingship.
The structure of the tree
The right – the pillar of kindness – eternity, kindness, wisdom
The left – the pillar of judgment – understanding, severity and splendor.
Center – Crown, beauty, foundation, kingship. The center connects the right (male) column to the left (female) column and allows flow between them. Mating, love, fertility and creation.
It can be said that the tree of the sefirot serves as a kind of map describing the whole act of creation down to the smallest details in human life.
Crown – Represents divine providence and abundance. Expresses the divine will and the connection to the infinite.
Wisdom – receives the light from a crown sefira, is the initial expression of the energy coming out of the crown and gives order and definition to form initial ideas. Wisdom is the starting point of new ideas and inspiration.
Understanding – fed by wisdom, is the embodiment of wisdom, it takes the idea created in wisdom and tries to determine how it can be realized in reality.
Kindness (Abraham) – brings the divine good and infinite abundance to the world, without reckoning and without reduction. Represents the immense power of boundless love, charity and the connection to spirituality.
Severity (Isaac) – Along with the sefirat chesed (kindess), heroism is called sefirat HaDin (judgement). Its role is to serve the heart and balance the power, abundance and giving that comes from kindness. Severity represents the emotional reduction and presents practical evidence, thus balancing giving with receiving.
Beauty (Yaakov) – connects the opposing forces in the sefirot of kindness and severity to create harmony between judgement and mercy. Represents the wholeness of the soul at its unified level, serves as a balance between masculinity and femininity, between the stormy and the quiet, connects us to inner feelings and illustrates the beauty and wholeness in our world.
Eternity (Moses) – its location below the count of kindness. Eternity serves as a conduit for the transfer of abundance to the world in which we live, expressing eternity and the constant knowledge and information rooted in man. Contains faith and doubt.
Splendor (Aaron) – Under severity, a material application of thought processes. In essence, it reduces all desires to precise action, with emphasis on cost-benefit considerations.
Foundation (Yosef) – This sefira represents the connection between heaven and earth, from idea to deed. It gathers insights and considerations and flows everything into the kingship sefira. This sefira instills in us the desire to live and absorb the pleasures of life and is the one that affects our sex life.
Kingship (David) – completes all ten sefirot, represents the material world and material doing. This is where everything takes in a real and physical form. Kingship is polar to the crown and represents the foundation of the earth, the here and now.
The ten sefirot are worlds within a world, each of the sefirot represents the full balance in the universe and in man, mentally and physically.
You are invited to deepen your knowledge:
Talmud of the Ten Sefirot – Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag Baal HaSulam,
Sefer Hatzira- the Book of Creation
Sefer Shaarei Ora- introductory chapters in understanding Kabbalah and its symbols – Gershom Shalom.
