Beginning in the 13th century, the kabbalists made pictorial representations of the structure of creation as it progressed from Ein-Sof downward. These diagrams were called ilanot ("trees"), and the differences between them reflect differences among the various doctrines and schemes of symbolism. A detailed pictorial representation of the Lurianic system, called ilan ha-gadol ("the great tree") was published first in the form of a long scroll and later as a book in Warsaw in the late 19th century.

These speculations were formalized in the doctrine of cosmic cycles (shemittot), which was based on a fixed period in creation. In one system it was posited that the world would last for 49,000 years, that each of the seven planets would rule for 7,000 years, and that God would then destroy the world, restore it to chaos in the 50th millenium, and then re-create it once again. These astrological ideas were garnered from Arabic and Greek sources.

The principal point of this doctrine is that the emanations (Sefirot), and not the stars, determined the progress of the world. The first three Sefirot remain concealed and do not activate worlds outside themselves. However, from the emanation known as Binah ("intelligence") the seven Sefirot are emanated. Each one of these Sefirot has a special role in the cosmic cycle. Each cycle is called a shemittah, or sabbatical year, and has an active life of 6,000 years. In the seventh millenium, which is the Sabbath of the cycle, the forces of the Sefirot cease to function and the world returns to chaos. At the end of all the shemittot there is the "great jubilee," when all the lower worlds and seven Sefirot are reabsorbed into Binah. Thus the basic unit of world history is the 50,000-year jubilee.

The influence of the doctrine of cosmic cycles was strong through the 17th century. However, the Zohar ignored it completely, and as that became the authoritative source for later Kabbalah, this silence strengthened opposition to the doctrine. No less a scholar than Isaac Luria rejected it as a mistaken hypothesis. Yet this philosophy retained a number of dedicated adherents. Mordecai Yaffe, a contemporary of Isaac Luria, taught at the end of the 16th century that sequences of shemittot existed. The shemittah of Din ("judgment") began precisely at the time of the giving of the Torah, while everything that preceded it belonged to the end of the shemittah of Chesed ("lovingkindness"). Kabbalistic circles continued to support it because of its visionary utopianism and mystical theory concerning the changing manifestations of the Torah.