Table Of ContentTREE OF LIFE
An Introduction to the Cabala
Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi
RIDER
London Melbourne Sydney Auckland Johannesburg
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank every person who, consciously or un
consciously, living or dead, has contributed to this work.
Particularly, I am grateful to my forefathers and to various
personal mentors, especially those in the tradition of the
Society of the Common Life.
Contents
I Introduction 13
II History 17
III Negative Existence 26
IV Lightning Flash 31
V Tree and Man 35
VI Tree and Gods 51
VII The Four Worlds 73
VIII Triad and Octave 81
IX Paths 95
X Practice 106
XI Exercise 109
XII Parliament 111
XIII God and Mammon 122
XIV Love Affair 139
XV Birth-Life-Death 147
XVI Time l6l
XVII Planet Earth: a speculation 171
XVIII Man 183
XIX Aim 191
Index
Table of Plates
1 Hebrew Tree 10
2 Tree of Life 12
3 Menorah 16
4 Tree of Thomas Aquinas 22
5 Negative existence 26
6 Lightning flash 30
7 Tree of Man 36
8 Gods and planets 52
9 Four worlds 72
10 Triad and Octave 82
11 Inner triads 91
12 Paths 99
13 Tarot: two systems 103
14 Parliament 110
15 Religion 126
16 Mammon 132
17 Birth-life-death 148
18 Time 162
19 Planet earth 172
20 Man 185
21 Evolving man
195
Preface
The Cabalistic Tree of Life has been with us for two
thousand or more years. Every age has seen it through its own
eyes and this book is an attempt to cast it into twentieth-
century terms so that its blossoms may flower for another
season.
The Tree of Life is an analogue of the Absolute, the
Universe and Man. Its roots penetrate deep into the earth
below and its top branches touch the uppermost heaven.
Man, meeting point between heaven and earth, is an image
of his Creator. A complete but unrealised Tree in miniature,
and lower than the angels, his is to choose to rise higher by
climbing the branches of himself, and so gain the ultimate
fruit.
London 5731
Tree of Life
I
Introduction
The Tree of Life is a picture of Creation. It is an objective
diagram of the principles working throughout the Uni
verse. Cast in the form of an analogic tree it demonstrates
the flow of forces down from the Divine to the lowest world
and back again. In it are contained all the laws that govern
and their interaction. It is also a comprehensive view of man.
The relative Universe hovers between two poles. All and
Nothing. Either end of this fluctuating axis may be seen as
Nothing or All, as both become the entry and exit points for
the Absolute who stands apart from Creation. Here we have
the full reality. All else is, to the ultimate observer, illusion
—a cosmic drama composed and dissolved in a cyclic round
of plays within plays from the subtlest reverberations in the
Highest worlds to the slowest movements and changes in
the coursest Materiality.
The Absolute has no direct contact with creation yet Being
permeates through the matrix of the Universe, supporting it
like the silence behind every sound. Without this negative
reality nothing could come into existence, as shadow can not
manifest without light. Here in the relative world we move
amid particles and waves never for the most part suspecting
that what we touch is always disappearing, and what we
see is not really there. Solidity is a charade, a temporary
state of nothing, frozen for a time into a form that is familiar
to us, who are ourselves but travellers in the ever changing
scenery called earth.
14 TREE OF LIFE
Creation is separate from its creator even more than a
modern production of Hamlet is far removed from
Shakespeare. Yet creation bears its Author's hand and
though the actors may interpret, the play remains essen
tially as the Master conceived it. The relative Universe, like
our analogy of a play, is constructed in the same design with
protagonists and supporting cast set against a series of back
grounds in which different roles, seeking to find equilibrium,
create and operate dramatic events known as evolution.
The relationships between the various actors or forces is
very precise, though they may take up different attitudes
under specific conditions. This set of combinations is laid
out in the Tree of Life so that a given situation may be
examined and its participants and their true status be
revealed.
The Tree is a model of the relative Universe. It is
the template of all the world, carrying within it a recurring
system of order. Moreover any complete sub-organism or
organisation is an imitation of its plan. Man is the prime
example. He is a microcosm of the macrocosm. His being
is an exact replica in every detail in miniature of the cos
moses above him. True, he moves in the physical world, is
made up of atoms, molecules and cells yet he partakes in the
subtle realm of forms, can assist in conscious creation and
has access to the Divine.
As man is an image of Creation so Creation is but a
reflection of the Creator. By this resemblance we are able to
study that which is below by looking at that which is above
and that which we cannot observe above by examining that
which is below. Through the Tree of Life we have an objec
tive connection which gives us insight and knowledge by
the principle of parallel—into the upper and lower, inner
and outer Universes.
In our account the origin of the Tree of Life is traced, then
the power of its illumination and formulation. Following the
INTRODUCTION 15
development of its conception we see that cosmic principles
apply to any whole entity. Observing its workings we are
shown how the tree gathers into an intelligible order all
aspects of phenomena and demonstrates them in a reflec
tive picture, a Universe wherein the Creator is present even
in the densest of matter.
