• Etz Chaim is a common name for
yeshivas and
synagogues as well as for works of
rabbinic literature. • The term
Etz Chaim (plural: ) is also used to describe each of the wooden poles to which the
parchment of a
Sefer Torah is attached. A hymn including the aforementioned verse () is sung in all
Ashkenazi rites as the
Torah is returned to the
ark. • In
Kabbalah, the
Etz Ḥayim symbol (, The Tree of Life") is a mystical symbol used to understand the nature of God and the manner in which he created the world. The term
Etz Ḥayim is also the title of one of the most important works in Jewish mysticism, written by
Ḥayim Vital in the course of twenty years following the death of his master,
Isaac Luria, in 1572, presenting and explicating Luria's systematic reconceptualization and expansion of the insights of the
Zohar and other earlier mystical sources. Vital's
Etz Chaim is the foundational work for the later
Lurianic Kabbalah, which soon became the mainstream form of Kabbalah amongst both Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jewry up to the modern period. This massive multi-volumed work circulated only in manuscript form among mystics for over 100 years, and was first published in 1782. ==Educational institutions==