The Kabbalah Tree: A Journey of Balance & Growth

by Rachel Pollack

2005 Coalition of Visionary Resources (COVR) 2nd Runner Up in Non-Fiction category!

Kabbalah's most famous symbol, the Tree of Life, has become the organizing principle behind our human efforts to understand the world. Using Hermann Haindl's lush depiction of the Tree of Life, Rachel Pollack examines the message behind this ancient symbol. She takes a non-denominational approach - drawing upon unusual sources such as tribal and shamanic traditions, modern science, contemporary Kabbalists, tarot interpreters, and a comic book writer - to explore the Tree's meaning. Along the way, we learn more about Kabbalah's history, texts, mystical concepts, and why this esoteric tradition has sprung up again in the twenty-first century.

Genres: Spirituality, Tarot, Nonfiction, Jewish, Paganism, Occult

192 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2004

About the author

Rachel Grace Pollack was an American science fiction author, comic book writer, and expert on divinatory tarot. Pollack was a great influence on the women's spirituality movement.

Reviews

[Hans · Rating 3 out of 5]

The skeptic in me always throws up red flags with "New-Agey" stuff that is a little too feel-goodie. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to like this, I wanted to believe every word. It definitely help peak my interest in doing some more follow up reading on Kabbalah but lets face it Rachel Pollack cites a Comic Book author as a Kabbalah expert (Alan Moore). So She definitely took some licenses to embellish her ideas.

The core problem I had with the book was that it was written entirely based off of one guy's painting of the "Tree of Life". Which I found strange, it was like a longt sales pitch of this Haindl's guy's painting.

There were some intriguing ideas. I especially like her ideas regarding the role of stories in the individuation of human development. So overall it is a quick enough read that it isn't a loss, and at best introduces some intriguing concepts in regards to Kabbalah.


"The moment we're born, our bodies start to decay, and our stories start to grow. To live a successful life means to leave behind a meaningful story by the time that we die. We might say that we enter into physical bodies just so we can understand that transformation of our lives into stories"

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The discussion of the paths on the tree of life and the links to the Tarot major arcana is just fascinating. Also, I really liked all the charts throughout the book.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a long book but it took me months to get through because it's so dense and detailed. I appreciate how Pollack addresses and contextualizes the various Kabbalistic traditions. I'm excited to read more of her work.

[Tarot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rachel Pollack was raised as an Orthodox Jew, and though she doesn't call herself a Kabbalah expert because she knows people in her community who've studied the subject more than she has, she still exhibits a firm understanding of the history and development of the Jewish Kabbalah, Christian Cabalah, and Hermetic/Western Qabalah (I will use the original spelling on the book for the rest of this review to mean all three).

Pollack's relationship with German POW, intuitive painter, and best-selling Tarot creator Hermann Haindl, for whom she wrote two in-depth volumes about his Haindl Tarot deck, once again allows her to deep-dive into the esoteric layers of his art, this time a painting of the Tree of Life.  The book is primarily an exploration and explanation of the Kaballah.  The inclusion of a poster of Haindl's art is a wonderful physical example of these concepts, but is not the primary focus of the book, contrary to the complaint of another reviewer.

Pollack describes in detail how the Sefer Yetsirah, Zohar, book of Genesis in the Tanakh, ancient shamanism, ancient Goddess religions before the rise of Abrahamic faiths, The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and modern art -- such as Haindl's Tree of Life and Alan Moore's comic book Promethea -- can all contribute to our understanding of the Kabbalah.  Once again contrary to the complaint of another review, Moore is never once referred to as a Kaballah expert and isn't even mentioned until page 94, over halfway through the book. Throwing a word like "New Age" at a book written by a Jewish person who primary uses Hebrew texts to describe the Kaballah is oxymoronic.

Pollack is also an acclaimed Tarot scholar and author of the best-selling Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom, so she ties in concepts covered by Robert Wang's The Qabalistic Tarot: A Textbook of Mystical Philosophy while also describing certain characteristics in more detail, such as the cross-polarity of the sephiroth and their alternate names. She even has a Kaballah Tarot spread in the back of the book.

I personally enjoyed these two books and think they compliment each other for anyone seeking to do Kaballah pathworking/meditation and Tarot study.

[Gail Nyoka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pollack makes the subject of Kabbalah understandable and relatable, even to beginners.

[Rachel Teferet · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had lots of really interesting information, but unfortunately it constantly references a poster that should have come with the book. I took out the book from the library and there is no poster, so a lot of the information was irrelevant. I also found the material a bit hard to digest and not super well organized. That being said I did pick up a lot of great tidbits. Rachel Pollick is an amazing author and I love her books on the tarot, I was hoping this might have been a better guide for me.

[Steve Gambino · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very insightful read. Rachel Pollack is always a delight to read. Her depth of knowledge on various wisdom traditions are skillfully applied to her explanations of the various facets of Kabbalah.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this because so much modern tarot interpretation is based on Kabbalah and I figured it would be useful to understand it better, and Pollack is my favourite tarot writer. This is maybe a little too free-flowing an introduction for my schematic virgo-type brain. Also, somewhat predictably, I am vexed by the uncritical approach both to cultural appropriation (in what ways is western kabbalah a form of cultural appropriation, and how does that affect the ways we use it), and gender binaries (I realise these are established in the form of their own overcoming but it's still not clear to me how or why it's useful to organise traits - much less spiritual truths - into 'masculine' or 'feminine').

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's important to remember that this book was designed as a companion to Hermann Haindl's painting of the Tree of Life. As with his tarot deck, Haindl drew from many different sources and there for so does Rachel Pollack's book. So, it's not a straight primer on Jewish Kabbalah or Western Kabbalah, it's a mix of both along with a number of other sources. After a few introductory chapters, Pollack describes each of the ten sephiroth, then each path of the Tree of Life briefly relating the Hebrew Letter to the corresponding Tarot card. It's a quick and enjoyable read. There's a good reference list at the back if one wants to delve further into the specifics of Jewish or Western Kabbalah. The comes with a poster of the Haindl painting.

[Saffron · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second time I have read this book and it will definitely still be worth going back to.

For anyone interested in the Qabalah and Tarot this is a must for your library. The author is very knowledgeable about both subjects and takes a less Patriarchal view than most on the subject, similar to Lon Milo DuQuette.

The version I have has a copy of the Haindl painting of the Tree of Life that this is the official guide to. I personally am not a fan of this particular painting, even though the Tarot deck he created are lovely. However having the picture goes with the narration and is the whole reason for the book itself.

A great introduction to the subject.

[Oliver Ho · Rating 3 out of 5]

A useful overview that also covers the connections to tarot in detail. I appreciated the Alan Moore references. It seemed to skate on the surface of deeper topics (probably by necessity), and I'll probably seek out an introductory text that's a little more grounded. The kindle version does not include an image of the painting by Hermann Haindl that most of the book uses as a fundamental structure, which is annoying.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love most anything that Rachel Pollack writes! She has unique and insightful view on spirituality, tarot, Jewish tradition, and more!

[Jacque Savageau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though this book is based on the tarot, it is an excellent teaching tool on Kabbalah. One of my favorite books!