The Tree of Life is the Torah -2

[This was first posted in 2012, buried in our pile of over 1000 articles since we opened this website that year.  When a visitor clicks forgotten posts, it gives us reason to revisit and check if still relevant and still reflective of our Sinaite thinking today.  Rarely if ever have we changed our position on our foundational beliefs set at the beginning of our Sinai pilgrimage; what normally happens is we add more insights as we progressively learn.  There is a “prequel” to this which is about the earthly “tree of life”:  What is “the Tree of Life”? –1 and you might want to check this out as well:  The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life – Proverbs 11:30. —Admin1]

 

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 Proverbs 3:1-18:

My child, do not forget My Torah, and let your heart guard My commandments, for they add to you length of days and years of life and peace. Kindness and truth will not forsake you. Bind them upon your neck; inscribe them on the tablet of your heart, and you will find favor and goodly wisdom in the eyes of God and man.  

 

Trust in YHWH with all your heart and do not rely upon your own understanding.  In all your ways know Him, and He will smooth your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear YHWH and turn away from evil.  It will be health to your navel and marrow to your bones.  Honor YHWH with your wealth, and with the first of all your produce, then your storehouses will be filled with plenty and the wine of your vats will burst forth.  My child, do not despise YHWH’s  discipline, and do not despise His reproof, for HaShem admonishes the one He loves, and like a father He mollifies the child.  Praiseworthy is a person who has found wisdom, a person who can derive understanding [from it], for its commerce is better than the commerce of silver, and its produce [is better] than fine gold.  It is more precious than pearls, and all your desires cannot compare to it.  Length of days is at its right; and its left, wealth and honor.  Its ways are ways of pleasantness and all its pathways are peace.  

 

It is a tree of life to those who grasp it, and its supporters are praiseworthy.[AST]

 

 

One interesting interpretation of the tree of life focuses not so much on the tree itself but on the angelic “cherubim” that guard it in the garden of Eden. There are only two places in the Tanach where the cherubim appear: the first time is in Genesis 3:23 when Adam and Eve were being directed with flaming swords away from the tree.

 

So HaShem God banished him from the Garden of Eden, to work the soil from which he was taken.  And having driven out the man, He stationed at the east of the Garden of Eden the Cherubim and the flame of the ever-turning sword, to guard the way to the Tree of LIfe. [AST]

 

Imagine two symbolic trees at the center of the garden of Eden.  Partaking of the tree of life is connected with living forever, while partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is accompanied with the warning “you shall surely die.”  So the choice is for life, or for death.

 

The first couple are exposed to both trees, are given two choices, but a prohibition is attached to only one tree.  How ironic it is that Eve, followed by Adam, chose to partake of the prohibited tree with the death sentence so that true to the warning, both suffer the consequence of their choice: exile from the garden, curses specific to the woman, man, and the serpent, and a time limit to their physical life on earth.

 

Now, if the story ended there, we would have a 3-chapter Bible with a magnificent beginning and a tragic and sad ending.  Thankfully, the story continues  . . . .

 

The next appearance of the cherubim is in Exodus 37, when instructions are given to Moses for the construction of the Tabernacle:

 

vs 7 He made two Cherubs of gold — hammered out did he make them –from the two ends of the Cover: one Cherub from the end of one side and one Cherub from the end of the other; from the Cover did he make the Cherubs, from two ends. The Cherubs were with wings spread upward sheltering the Cover with their wings, with their faces toward one another; toward the Cover were the faces of the Cherubs. [AST] 

 

The ark of the covenant with the mercy seat in the wider context of the Tabernacle in the Wilderness is connected with the Presence of YHWH among His chosen people.  But that is not all; Moses is instructed to keep some items in the ark or the chest:

 

Deuteronomy 31:24-26  

So it was that when Moses finished writing the words of this Torah onto a book, until their conclusion: Moses commanded the Levites, the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant of HaShem, saying, “Take this book of the Torah and place it at the side of the Ark of the Covenant of HaShem, your God, and it shall be there for you as a witness.

 

We are supposed to make the connection:

• the cherubim guard the tree of life in the garden;
• the cherubim are part of the design in the Ark;
• the Torah is placed in the Ark of the Covenant;
• Proverbs 3 calls the Torah the tree of life.

 

In the final speech of Moses before the 2nd generation Israelites who were about to enter the promised land, he reiterates all of YHWH’s commandments and urges his people to ‘choose life’.

 

Deuteronomy 31:15-16, 19-20  

See—I have placed before you today the life and the good,  and the death and the evil, that which I command you today, to love HaShem, our God, to walk in His ways, to observe His commandments, His decrees, and His ordinances; then you will live and you will multiply, and HaShem, your God, will bless you in the Land to which you come, to possess it. . . . I call heaven and earth today to bear witness against you: I have placed life and death before you, blessing and curse; and you shall choose life, so that you will live, you and your offspring ––to love HaShem your God, to listen to His voice and to cleave to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days, to dwell upon the land that HaShem swore to your forefathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

 

Now what does it mean for a living breathing being to ‘choose life’? None of us who were born ever chose life; we were simply part of the natural reproduction process, we are the consequence of our parents’ choices. They chose life for us.  So now that we are alive, how are we to choose life again?  What is Moses saying?

 

It must be a life connected with the Source of Life, YHWH, the life He prescribes where?  In His Torah!  A life of obedience to YHWH’s commandments is blessed while living on this earth, in our lifetime . . . but is that all?  The context here does not go any further; it doesn’t have to, we just trust that this life on this earth is not the end for those who love and obey the Eternal God.

 

 

Choose life, partake of the tree of life—YHWH’s TORAH.

 

Read next:

http://sinai6000.net/choose-life-how-3/