Tree of Life

Contributed by Rabbi Geoffrey W. Dennis

The source of immortality, the Tree of Life grew in the middle of Eden with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Zohar claims that both trees grew from the same trunk. It is so big that the circumference of its trunk is "five-hundred years walking" (the ancients like to measure distance by time, see the Book of Jonah). All four of the primordial rivers branched out from beneath it.¹

According the Rabbinic understanding, the Tree of Life is the Torah, and the eternal life that was lost in Eden was restored to humanity with the giving of the Torah at Sinai.

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