Behold, the Tree of Life

(A Visual Summary of the Entire Course)

Content:

• Selections

Objectives:

• To Assemble the Tree of Life Diagram by unfolding the concepts discussed in the course

Discussion:

This chapter has put all of the pieces on the board.  It has assembled the Tree of Life using the 1st Book of Moses from the plates of brass as the foundational text.

It is NOT the definitive explanation of the tree of life, or of Mormon Kabbalah.  It is merely a cohesive picture with enough details to give you something approximating an invitation to ponder upon the ideas and imagery in Kabbalah, and to use this Tree of Life diagram as a map upon which you can lay out other ideas and images from the scriptures.  Especially as you read from the plates of brass.

You will notice that the passages used above to build the tree of life, and give meaning to each of the sephirot is composed almost entirely from passages found on the plates of brass that are woven in to the versions of these same passages that we had before we received the plates of brass.  The passages from the plates of brass that we did not have previously add kabbalistic insight, and in many cases they bring new light to the existing passages making them also kabbalistically interesting in ways that were less obvious before.

Now that you have the tree of life all “built” into an understandable abstract “picture” you might be asking yourself … even if this picture is described in this book, what difference does it make?  In what way is this picture useful?  In the next discussion we will take ONE of the allegories found in the scriptures that make use of this abstract tree, and see how having an image such as this can introduce new depth to previously vague imagery and symbolism.