Anonymous. Ilan. Kabbalistic “tree” or diagram of the arrangement of the spiritual cosmos

AN IMPORTANT AND EXTENSIVE KABBALISTIC SCROLL. SELDOM TO APPEAR IN AUCTION-SALE Over the ages attempts were made by various kabbalists to render into diagram-form the teachings of the Kabbalah concerning the structure of the spiritual universe. Known as the Ilan Hagadol (“great tree”) or Ilan Hakadosh (“holy tree”) or simply as the Ilan (“tree”), this arrangement would give the student of the esoteric lore a clearer picture of the exact layout of this highly complex universe. Our Ilan represents the order of the Lurianic cosmogony. The revelations of Rabbi Isaac Luria (Egypt and Eretz Israel, sixteenth century) revolutionized the world of Kabbala, introducing a complexity hitherto unknown. The most famous graphic representation of Lurianic doctrine is that ascribed to R. Meir Hakohen Poppers (d.1662), final editor of the Lurianic writings, published in Warsaw in 1864 as the Ilan Hagadol. However, Gershom Scholem has cast serious aspersions on the presumed authorship, as the Ilan Hagadol begins with a segment portraying the “Olam ha-Malbush” (World of the Garment) which comes out of the teaching of R. Israel Sarug and represents a serious departure from the Lurianic tradition received by R. Chaim Vital, of which Poppers is a faithful adherent. Our own Ilan makes no mention of the Olam ha-Malbush, and thus remains within the perimeters of Vitalian kabbalah. In passing, it should be noted that the preeminent Italian kabbalist R. Moses Chaim Luzzatto penned a condensed Ilan which was first published as an appendix to his work Choker u-Mekubal (Shklov, 1785). Another manuscript Ilan described in the literature is that of the Lithuanian kabbalist R. Kalonymos Kalman of Tchaves, a contemporary of the Vilna Gaon, held in high esteem by the Gaon. The Manfred R. Lehmann Library possesses an Aschkenazic kabbalistic drawing roughly contemporaneous with our own (1709?) but the “flow chart” is arranged predominantly as concentric circles. See Moshe Hallamish, Ohel Hayim, Vol. I [Kabbalistic Manuscripts] (New York, 1988), K 85 (p. 181). Actually, in terms of content, the drawing that appears to come closest to our own is that found on the following page of the Lehmann catalogue, K 86 (pp. 182-3), of eighteenth-century North African provenance. Several authors have penned commentaries on the Ilan, including R. Aryeh Leib Lipkin, nephew of the famed R. Israel Salanter, founder of the modern Mussar movement. See further Meir Benayahu, Kabbalistic Writings of R. Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto (Jerusalem, 1979), pp. 59, n. 30; 117-118; R. Chaim Friedlander, Sha’arei RaMCHaL (Bnei Berak, 1989), pp. 257-292; anonymous (R. Aryeh Leib Lipkin of Kratingen), Kelalei Hathchalath ha-Hochmah (Warsaw, 1893), ff. 30r.-44v.; EJ, Vol. XIII, col. 866