Inverted Tree of Live: According to legend the tree of life has its roots in heaven. It is there that the Creator resides and hence from there the roots originate. The torah is likened to the tree of life as are the ten sephirot. From Ginzberg's Legends of the Jewish, volume I, page 70: In Paradise stands the tree of life and the tree of knowledge, the later forming a hedge around the former. Only he who have cleared a path for himself though the tree of knowledge can come close to the tree of life, which is so great that it would take a man five hundred years to travel the distance equal to the diameter of the trunk, and no less vast is the space shaded by its crown of branches. From beneath it flows forth water that irrigates the whole earth.