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The Tree

gnostic

The Lost One
Are there really Jewish mystic at this forum? On Kabbalah?

Yes? That's good, because there are couple of questions I would like to ask, which people from two forums were unable to answer.

What's the significances of the Kabbalah Tree?

I am getting the picture that it has to the symbols of 10 manifestations or aspect of God. Am I on the right track.

I would like it a lot, if someone can give me some explanation of this tree.
 

Deut 13:1

Well-Known Member
gnostic said:
Are there really Jewish mystic at this forum? On Kabbalah?
No, there isn't anyone on this forum that understands Kabbalah. We can make guesses as to what it might mean, but I don't think even Jayhawker, who is probably farther along then I in studies, would claim to know Kabbalah.

Before tackling such things as Kabbalah it helps to understand the Torah: "It is a tree of life for those who grasp it, and those who draw near it are fortunate." Proverbs 3:18

This forum would be best to get rid of this entire sub-forum to prevent Maddona wanna-bes.
 

Nehustan

Well-Known Member
I'm guessing English is you main language, so here is a link to some 'written' qabbalah.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/tku/

This is almost an oxymoron as the qabbalah was an 'oral tradition'. There used to be a link on RF to a website...I just looked for it but can't find it. It is considered that the sephiroth are emanantions, not manifestations, with Eloah being, if you will, beyond. There are three 'veils' around the tree, Ain, Ain Soph and Ain Soph Aur, and Eloah is considered to be synonymous with Ain Soph Aur with Jahweh being 'the word'. Other interesting concepts are Adam Qadmon, Macrocosm, Microcosm, Daath and the phrase 'as above so below', not that google is a good source, but hey.... Really if you come from the 'christian' tradition it would be invaluable looking into these concepts thoroughly, and see what they evoke/invoke within you....and then in the truest tradition find people to discuss your thoughts with beyond the 'cyber' realm.
 

Deut 13:1

Well-Known Member
Nehustan said:
I'm guessing English is you main language, so here is a link to some 'written' qabbalah.
No english is not my primary language and your snide comments about something you have ZERO understanding of are not appreciated.
 

Avi

Member
Kabbalah: The hebrew Qof is widely pronounced as a "k" sound in many instances.
קַבָּלָה
 

Nehustan

Well-Known Member
Nehustan said:
I'm guessing English is you main language, so here is a link to some 'written' qabbalah.
Deut 13:1 said:
No english is not my primary language and your snide comments about something you have ZERO understanding of are not appreciated.
I don't mean to rock your boat as you seem quite able to do that by yourself, but the link wasn't intended for you, rather for the initial poster (gnostic), who I presumed spoke English as a first language as his location is Australia.

:areyoucra​

(actually I'm now really confused as I just read back my whole post, and I even say to 'Gnostic' that if he is coming from the 'Christian' tradition studying this knowledge would be invaluable to his understanding. This surely makes plain that I am not talking to you as you do not come from the 'Christian' tradition. I can only presume you are attempting in this thread (and others) to rise me to anger???? I'm not sure you are going to succeed, but hey be my guest.)​
 
In responding to the original post, anyone who has begun to study QBL and understand any bit of it, will most likely tell you that they will never understand it all. What Kabbalah does, specifically the QBL of the Hebrew Aleph-bet, is it restructures the mind in accordance with the principles that God uses to maintain Creation. These principles are displayed succinctly in the diagram of the Tree of Life, with the 10 sephiroth and the 22 letters connecting them as paths.

The Tree of Life depicts the 10 emanations of God, which are not really aspects, but more of a step-by-step process through which God reveals His nature to us. I'll go briefly into it here, though volumes have been written about this one subject, so don't expect someone like myself to be able to explain it clearly in one short post.

Before the Tree of Life begins, there is Ain Soph, which translated means something to the effect of "Limitlessness" and means absolute nothingness, which can for our purposes here be taken to mean the unknowable God. It’s unknowable because we can’t conceive of “nothing.” The best we can do is to form a concept of “nothing,” and that concept in itself is something. It’s a concept! So that concept, that idea, basically a concept of an idea, is the first emanation or sephira, which is called Kether, or Crown. It is the Ain Soph, the nothingness and limitlessness, condensed and crystallized into a single point, the point which is an idea of nothingness.

Inherent in the concept of “nothing” is of course the potential for “everything,” because a blank slate has no limits as to what can grow from it. The transition from “Nothingness” to “Everythingness” is the path from the first sephira to the second, which is called Chokmah or Wisdom. Traditionally symbolism surrounding Chokmah calls it the first Father or paternal source of life, and a well-spring or fountain. What that means is it is the first “place” where there is real meaning, a “somethingness” that can be given to the world.

Now, what good is a well-spring, a source of water and life, without something to absorb that life-potential? This takes us to the third sephira, Binah, or Understanding, which is represented as a Mother, a womb to be impregnated by the seed of Wisdom. The book Bahir I believe uses the symbolism of a garden to allude to Binah, in that the well-spring feeds the garden, which in turn takes that life-potential and from it births all that is perceptible to us.

What has happened up until this point has taken place in what is called the Supernal Triad, meaning that these three sephiroth are indeed “supernal” and above our direct experience. What takes place below Binah is in the realm of the 7 lower sephiroth, which can be related to the 6 directions (north, south, east, west, up, down) and the 7th is the center point which ties them all together, in order to create 3-dimensional space. This shows relatively clearly the way in which the Supernal Triad is outside the realm of our 3d world, and so is not clearly understood and conceived of by us.

I’ll leave my letter here unfinished at this point, as the lower 7th sephiroth will take up more space than I think anyone care’s to read in one sitting. I should have more time today to continue on.

Paul
 

john313

warrior-poet
i thought the book "God is a Verb" by Rabbi David Cooper was a good intro book on kabbalah. i don't know if that is any help, but it was a good read in my humble opinion. "sefer yetzirah" is another one that is really cool, but a lot more complicated than "God is a Verb".

peace and love to all
 

Mr Cheese

Well-Known Member
Are there really Jewish mystic at this forum? On Kabbalah?

Yes? That's good, because there are couple of questions I would like to ask, which people from two forums were unable to answer.

What's the significances of the Kabbalah Tree?

I am getting the picture that it has to the symbols of 10 manifestations or aspect of God. Am I on the right track.

I would like it a lot, if someone can give me some explanation of this tree.


The Etz Chaim or Kabbalistic tree of life, is often seen as the be all and end all fo Kabbalah; for many modern people this is indeed true. Of course there is far more to Kabbalah than the tree itself.

The tree is seen as 10 emanations that come from Ain Sof, the limitless or endless. This is the same as the Gnostic transcendent "God" and can be seen to be the same as the Egyptian Aten.

As this thread is rather old, I have no idea what you know by now...

The tree itself can be seen in many ways of course, as the body (microcosm) as God (Macrcosm) or a combination of both (greater and lesser faces); we can also combine the 4 worlds (or 5) and make 40 emanations.

The tree itself , as an image or glyph is not that old, around 12th cenutury or later. One argument is that the tree itself comes from flower of life:

Tree-of-Life_Flower-of-Life_Stage.jpg


but I doubt anyone here actually cares, so I wont continue unless others want to interact
 

Mr Cheese

Well-Known Member
The Sefirot in Love and Relationship
by
Gershom Winkler
(from “The Place where You are Standing is Holy”)
The sefirot represent an ancient Jewish mystical formula for esoteric gymnastics and God-shuttling. They are based on the ancients’ understanding of the attributes of God, the qualities of the Creator revealed within the fabric of Creation. The sefirot are symbolized in the human form, each attribute corresponding to a particular sector of the body. What follows is a loose adaptation of this ten-point kabbalistic formula for a clearer understanding of relationship dynamics. The Shadow side of each is described as well.
KETER
Keter means “crown.” A crown symbolizes representation. Before engaging in a relationship encounter, make sure you are wearing your personality where it can be seen. When engaged in relating to an Other, be fully aware of your own greatness, your own uniqueness. You, too, count. You, too, wear the royal crown because you, too, are the child of the Cosmic Sovereign. Do not lose yourself in the Other to the point where you feel inferior to them, or less adequate or talented, or that you must conceal some part of yourself from the Other to win their favor. The Shadow side of Keter is staying so clear you are actually unconnected and functionally rigid.
CHOKHMAH
RIGHT SIDE
Chokhmah means “knowledge.” Knowledge means yesterday’s consciousness. All that you know, in other words, comes from your past. In entering the arena of relationship, get in touch with your knowledge, your consciousness level as it has been up to the point of the encounter with the Other. Your past will need to be prepared for attunements and adjustments if it is to merge with the knowledge/consciousness of another, if you are to have a future with another. The Shadow side would be staying so logical and immersed in what follows from before that you cannot see the innovations, transformations, and surprise gifts that the universe is offering through yourself and others.
BINAH
LEFT SIDE
Binah means “understanding,” “intuition,” from the Hebrew word for “construction.” And it connotes tomorrow’s consciousness. It processes, builds upon, what you’ve known until now. And this is the next stage of encounter, seeing whether you can build a unit out of the merging of your past, your knowledge, and the other person’s past/knowledge; seeing whether there can be a future, whether you can move together, or whether you might not end up obstructing the movements of one another’s mind. The Shadow side is that, without Chokhmah, Binah consciousness renders you too fluid and in the moment so that you do not keep agreements because they don’t feel right anymore. The Other can see and respond to your authenticity but can barely find you or count on you for anything.
(These three processes take place in the initial embrace and therefore their acronym, in sound only, is CHiBeK, Hebrew for “embrace.” But this acronym works in sound only, not in actual spelling, for the initial embrace is not clear, it only sounds good. It hasn’t been tested. It is a social, rather than intimate, embrace. If the embrace, the greeting or meeting, has succeeded, the next three movements of the dance can begin.)
CHESED
RIGHT ARM
Chesed means “grace.” Once there is a meeting of minds, a synchronicity of consciousness, there develops an innocent sense of trust that unleashes a sometimes overwhelming desire to express, to give to the other. The giving may take any variety of forms ranging from loving, caring, and giving gifts to sharing your innermost secrets, spilling your guts. Its Shadow side is oversharing, losing boundaries, engulfing the Other, swallowing them up. Or, on the other hand, sharing too much when the Other is not honoring you in your deepest places.
GEVURAH
LEFT ARM
Gevurah means “constriction.” The initial unleashing of the emotion we call love often gets us into a lot of trouble, a lot of pain, because of the tendency to spill it rather than to pour it. The attribute of Gevurah helps one to direct the outpouring in such a way that it does not overwhelm Self or Other but leaves ample space for feedback, for the Other to respond, for the Other to choose either to receive the Chesed expressed or reject it or harness it toward alternate directions for the relationship. Gevurah checks to determine whether the love is real, or infatuation, or perhaps even psychotic and obsessive. Its Shadow side is harshness, inflexibility, and demanding of too much structure and restriction around how each emotes or even around what time dinner is served. It can also involve censoring your feelings too harshly so that the Other is left with uncertainty about how you are seeing them. Too much Gevurah leads to emotional as well as sensual frigidity.
TIFERET
HEART
Tiferet is feeling. It means “beauty,” but beauty is determined by feeling. Tiferet is the end result of the processes worked out up to this point, a healthy, well-toned feeling. Love. Harmony. Clarity. Good—as in: “And God saw all that God had made and behold it was Good” (Genesis 1:31)—when everything comes together and clicks. The Shadow side is feeling so blissfully complete about the relationship that you leave little or no room for the possibility of change in either your Self or the Other. The notion of conflict, too, becomes taboo, and you end up suppressing your feelings if you are hurt by something the Other says or does, because, after all, you have the perfect relationship.
(This second three-part process is that of interaction, playing out the mind merging of the first stages. Its acronym is appropriately CHuG, which means “circle,” as in a circle or intimate gathering of people. The “T” for tiferet, stands for the final letter in the Hebrew alphabet, tuf, for like the tuf, Tiferet is the climax of the merging. The relationship has begun. Likewise, so have the most challenging of all the dynamics in a relationship: the power struggle, the nature of the final three-part process.)

http://magdelene.wordpress.com/2008/09/17/the-sefirot-in-love-and-relationship/

 

Mr Cheese

Well-Known Member
Kabbalah: The hebrew Qof is widely pronounced as a "k" sound in many instances.
קַבָּלָה

there are 22 ways to spell kabbala, I believe....

this is the nature of transliteration
 

ndh

New Member
Are there really Jewish mystic at this forum? On Kabbalah?

Yes? That's good, because there are couple of questions I would like to ask, which people from two forums were unable to answer.

What's the significances of the Kabbalah Tree?

I am getting the picture that it has to the symbols of 10 manifestations or aspect of God. Am I on the right track.

I would like it a lot, if someone can give me some explanation of this tree.

Yes on the right track.
But God has most to do with the top one keter and a little to do with the next two because the first three are about the spiritual word.
The bottom seven of the physicl world has to do with God's governance, not really God himself.
The tree just splits up the 10 sephirot into right, left and middle. Each column is a "type."
 
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