Columns of the Tree/Gender

The right column, the one containing sefirot 2, 4, and 7, is known as the Pillar of Mercy. These three sefirot all share a general outgoing, expansive, sort of flavor. They are unrestrained. They move. The left column, the one containing sefirot 3, 5, and 8, is known as the Pillar of Severity. These sefirot are generally restricting, confining, and static.

If sefirot 2, 4, and 7 (the mercy sefirot) existed purely on their own, they would expand on and on and on into infinity. If sefirot 3, 5, and 8 (the severity sefirot) existed on their own, we'd have complete stagnation. But when these two extremes are combined, or balanced, we have a harmonious, functional world; a proper amount of movement properly balanced by a proper amount of restraint. This equilibrium is expressed by the four sefirot (1, 6, 9, and 10) located on the middle pillar of the tree, the Pillar of Balance.

The characteristics of the right and left columns are regarded by qabalists as being male and female respectively. Qabala often uses sexual imagery. Here, the idea is that the male is a giver - of his seed. The female contains, restricts. Once she receives the male's seed, it stays in place (and grows). Maleness is seen as pure action; the seed moving out from the male's body. Femaleness is seen as pure containment; the male's seed is captured and held so it can no longer rush about freely. Hence the names of the pillars; mercy (freedom to move about) and severity (confinement that prevents free movement).

Students of Eastern systems may recognize that this is similar to yin and yang. In both systems, we work with a dichotomy between giver and receiver, active or passive. Qabala adds the third characteristic; the Pillar of Balance.

Often in qabala we read of distinctions between male and female. When this occurs, it's important to remember that we are describing qualities, not gender stereotypes. The qabalistic texts were written in a time and place quite different from our own, when gender roles were more rigidly defined. It's hardly surprising that those writers would use the means of expression that pervaded the world in which they lived. The specific metaphors may strike us as obsolete. But the concepts remain very much alive. This will be evident if you think of male/female not in terms of gender stereotype, but in terms of the qualities they represent; active/passive, expansive/constrictive, yin/yang, giving/receiving, etc. Viewed on these terms, qabala meshes quite comfortably withe the modern new-age view of the soul as gender neutral, with every human being possessing both "male" and "female" qualities which are more or less activated or restrained in different people in different degrees under different circumstances. Men reflect the severity sefirot (3,5, and 8) every bit as much as women reflect the mercy sefirot (2, 4, and 7).

Paths

When defining the Tree of Life above, I said the reference to the 10 sefirot was a "short answer." For a longer answer, we turn to Sefer Yetzirah (the "Book of Formation") which opens by informing us that God created His universe "with 32 mystical paths of Wisdom..." (1:1). Hence a more complete description of the Tree of Life would have to account not just for the 10 sefirot (the first 10 paths) but also for the 22 other paths between sefirot. Each of these additional paths represents one of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The 10 numbered sefirot plus the 22 letters add up to the 32 paths of wisdom from Sefer Yetzirah.

In examining the tree layout above, if you were going to add in the 22 paths, you'd do by representing each path as a line connecting two numbers. But if you look closely, there are more than 22 possible lines that could be drawn. So which number pairs get connected by a path/line and which ones don't get connected? And, which Hebrew letter matches up with which path/line?

In Inner Space, Aryeh Kaplan points out (p. 40) that the sefirot are generally referred to as "Midot" which means "measures" or "dimensions." He also points out that the word sefira (SPYRH) is related to Saper (SPR), which means "to express," Sapir (SPYR), which means "brilliance," Safar (SPR), which means "number," Sefar (SPR - different vowel sounds), meaning "boundary," and Sefer (SPR - another set of vowel sounds), meaning "book." Rabbi Kaplan summarizes these associations by describing the sefirot as "Luminaries that serve to reveal and express god's greatness" and "Vessels that limit and delineate God's infinite light." He goes on to pose the following issue:

"Are the Sefirot essences of the Divine or are they vessels of the Divine? In other words, are the Sefirot ten windows through which we can perceive the divine or are they ten tools that God uses to direct the world? The Ari (Luria) answers that both are true on different levels."

In Song of the Soul (p. 72), Yechiel Bar Lev puts it another way:

"The Creator, Blessed be He, wanted His limited ratzon (will) to be revealed through the sefirot, that is, through ten characteristics... For instance, when the Creator, Blessed be He, wishes to reveal His characteristic of lovingkindness, He works through the sefira of chesed; when He wishes to reveal His characteristic of strength or might, He acts through the sefira of gevura...

"This may be compared to an executive who delegates his authority to his assistant in order to set up a new department. The aide's authority is part and parcel of the executive's own authority, but the executive wishes to delegate it in a limited way, in order to achieve a specific goal that he himself has set."

Further on (pp. 78-79), Bar-Lev adds:

"[W]e must remember that, no matter how we define the sefirot, we must keep these rules in mind: sefirot are not separate from the Creator, Blessed be He, but are light emanated from Him in order to create. The actions of the sefirot are illuminations sent from the Creator, flashes of spiritual light diffusing from His source and remaining connected with it when they reach His creatures. Sefirot themselves are connected to each other and work through a blending of their strengths and qualities. The consequences of the sefirot and results of their actions are the totality of reality."

Many see the Tree of life as a hierarchical, sequential ladder separating humanity (malkuth) from divinity (kether and above). And there are contexts in which such a view would be appropriate. But this is not the only way to look at the Tree of Life. A focus on the fact that all 10 sefirot are equally part and parcel of divinity supports alternative ways to look at the relationship between humanity and divinity.

Humanity and the Tree

The Torah tells us that we are created in God's image. But God is infinite. What sort of "image" can God have? We speak in terms of anthropomorphisms (attributing human qualities to God), but this is just for our own convenience. Aryeh Kaplan addresses the image-of-God issue as follows (Inner Space p. 39):

"When we remember, however, that God created a spiritual dimension in order to reveal Himself to man, such an expression takes on a completely new significance. For now, God's `image' does not refer to God Himself who is completely beyond all description. It refers to the basic conceptual model or structure that underlies all creation. It refers to the Sefirot.

"It is the Sefirot that make it possible for an infinite and transcendental God to interact with His creation. For they allow us to speak about God's immanence in creation, what He does, without referring too directly to what He is. It is in this sense that the Sefirot are the keys to the precise meaning behind the anthropomorphisms of the Bible, for they tell us about God's actions. And it is in this sense that man was created in "the image of God." For man is thus seen as a microcosm of God's creative powers. Man is a microcosm of the Sefirot."

Under this view, all the sefirot are in God and all the sefirot are in humans. This calls to mind a phrase from the Hermetic teachings: "as above, so below." New-age teachings speak of the physical world being created by beliefs and thoughts (the outer world being a reflection of the inner world). Eastern systems describe humanity as being completely connected with God but failing to perceive this because of what the Hindus describe as Maya (illusion). These ideas are all consistent with Kaplan's interpretation of man being created in God's image. It also relates to the concept of Adam Kadmon, the archetypical man (a topic to be covered later on). The sefirot serve as a link between physical world and the unseen infinite source that underlies it.