אודות

Kabbalah has been the dominant expression of Jewish esotericism since the thirteenth century.

The fundamental esoteric axiom of the kabbalists is that the Divine is revealed as ten networked sefirot, luminous emanations that express distinct qualities. The light of God that flows through the structured sefirotic array through its endless pathways generates all of reality. This array, the predominant visualization of which has been in the form of a tree, is the kabbalistic map of God.

Because the sefirot are thought to generate reality and to respond to its vicissitudes, tikkun, the enhancement and reparation of the cosmos, requires the intentional intervention of the kabbalist. This fundamental kabbalistic work demands that the contemplative imaginatively engage with the sefirotic tree. The centrality of this practice gave rise to the emergence of the genre of Ilanot (lit., trees) in the 14th century. Ilanot are defined by kabbalists as parchment sheets upon which arboreal diagrams of the sefirot are inscribed.

Despite their centrality to kabbalistic practice and their production by kabbalists throughout the Jewish world for over half a millennium, ilanot were not studied systematically until Prof. J. H. Chajes of the University of Haifa founded The Ilanot Project with the support of the Israel Science Foundation. In 2019, the Volkswagen Foundation provided “proof of concept” support for the development of a platform tailor-made for the research and presentation of ilanot. The development is a cooperative venture of The Ilanot Project and the Göttingen State and University Library (SUB).