The Tree of Life is a spiritual concept that forms part of the Jewish mystery tradition - the Kabalah.
You will find Kabalah spelt a number of different ways - Kabbala, Qabalah and a few more. For the purposes of Tarot study, we usually use the spelling Qabalah. This differentiates it from the Kabalah, which is the spelling usually associated with the religious study of the Tree of Life.
Please don’t walk up to the next Jewish person you see and tell them you know all about the Tree of Life and Kabalah because you read Tarot. It’s not very PC.
Elphias Levi (1810-1875) was a student of religion who left the church and became a practitioner of magic and the occult arts. He popularised an idea that the 22 Trumps of Tarot corresponded with the 22 Hebrew letters and the paths and Sephiroth of the Tree of Life.
So basically Tarot has been overlaid on the Tree of Life and Judaism, but certainly doesn’t form part of the Jewish religion or beliefs.
Qabalists believe that God created existence through ten emanations of energy (Ace to 10 in the Minor Arcana).
So we can say that the TOL is a ‘blueprint’ of sorts for the model of creation, and God’s advice on ‘How To Live’. An instruction manual, perhaps.
The TOL has three pillars which support ten spheres which are known as Sephiroth. Each Sephiroth represents an aspect of the human spiritual evolution and are connected by 22 lines or paths.
Each path carries one of the Hebrew letters (and it’s associated Major Arcana card).
The 22 paths and the 10 Sephiroth are collectively known as the “Thirty-two Paths of Wisdom”.
This arrangement is most likely derived from the second century book, The Sepher Yetzirah (the Book of Creation) but it has no doubt evolved over time, as all things do. There are many esoteric and spiritual groups who provide teachings based on some version of the Qabalah.
A lightning flash is sometimes shown superimposed over the TOL. This represents the Divine descending into physical being and it’s reverse is we humans ascending toward the Divine.
The Pillars of the TOL are asid to represent the pillars of King Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem. You can see them in the High Priestess card.
The left hand pillar is the pillar of form, judgement, or severity. The right hand pillar is the pillar of force, mercy, justice or love.
In the HPS card, the pillars bear the letters B and J. This stands for Boaz, which means strength and Jachin which means wisdom.
The third, or Middle pillar, is balance, or mildness.The HPS represents this balance.
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