Etz Chaim (also transliterated as 'Etz Ḥayyim) (Hebrew: עץ חיים, "Tree of Life") is a common term used in Judaism. The expression, found in the Book of Proverbs, is figuratively applied to the Torah itself: "It [the Torah] is a Tree of Life to those who cleave to it". Etz Chaim is a common name for yeshivas and synagogues as well as for works of Rabbinic literature.
The term Etz Chaim, (plural: עצי חיים Atzei Chaim), is also used to describe each of the wooden poles to which the parchment of a Sefer Torah is attached. A hymn beginning "Etz Chaim hi"("It is a tree of life") is sung in all Ashkenazi rites as the Torah is returned to the ark.[1]
In kabbalah, Etz Chaim is a mystical symbol used to understand the nature of God and the manner in which He created the world. The terminology Etz Chaim, “Tree of Life”, or more properly Etz Ha-Chaim, “The Tree of Life”, is also the title of one of the most important works in Jewish mysticism, written by Chaim Vital (see Hayyim ben Joseph Vital) in the course of twenty years following the death of his master, Yitzhak or Isaac Luria, in 1572, presenting and explicating Luria's systematic reconceptualization and expansion of the insights of the Zohar and other earlier mystical sources. Chaim Vital's Etz Chaim is the foundational work for the later Lurianic Kabbalah, which soon became the mainstream form of Kabbalah amongst both Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jewry up to the modern period. This massive multi-volumed work circulated only in manuscript form amongst mystics for over 100 years, and was first published in 1782.
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