kwaw said:
Aleph also means to learn, and in some kabbalistic traditions the connection with 'ox' it means not 'ox' but 'oxen' in a 'yoke'. The connection with 'to teach, to learn' is said to be derived from the fact that a young untrained ox would be yoked to an older ox, thus 'to teach and to learn'. Kwaw
The meaning aleph with 'doctrina' - 'teaching' is very old and well known in western world, going back to at least St. Jerome.
Perhaps in the fool as a travellor we can detect a doctrine of exile and redemption, the latin term 'peregranatio' - travellor being connected with concept of both exile and pilgrimage; symbolism of seperation and reunification portrayed in renaissance neo-platonic ritualist and mythological motif as dismemberment and reunification:
"According to the theologians", Plutarch writes, "both prose writers
and poets, God is eternal, but yet, under the impulsion of some
predestined plan and purpose, he undergoes transformations in his
being...When the god is changed and distributed into winds, water,
earth, stars, plants and animals, they describe this experience and
transformation allegorically by the terms 'rending'
and 'dismemberment'.
Pico de Mirandola describing the ascent and descent of
the 'ladder' of reason as the steps upon which "we shall sometimes
descend, with titanic force rending the unity like Osiris into many
parts, and we shall sometimes ascend, with the force of Phoebus
collecting the parts like the limbs of Osiris into a unity." [Wind]
Among the neoplatonist of the renaissance another favoured figurement
of this was that of the 'mystery of the birth of Venus'. Venus
Urania, identified with the celestial virgin, is born from the sea
foam that was produced from the castration of Uranus, 'being the god
of heaven, Uranus conveys to formless matter the seed of ideal forms,
according to Pico "and because ideas would not have in themselves
variety and diversity if they were not mixed with formless nature,
and because without variety there cannot be beauty, so it justly
follows that Venus could not be born if the testicles of Uranus did
not fall into the waters of the sea".
So perhaps there is a relevance between the idea of the ox being a castrated bull. We may note that the letter aleph, said to be an ideogram of an ox yoke and plough, could also be seen as phallus and testes. The image of the fool is cognate with images of the period of the 'wandering jew' connected with the concept of exile, and the penis of the noblet fool appears to be circumcised.
The idea of 'yoke' includes the idea of 'to be with' and 'covenant'. By 'covenant' G-d is seen as in 'covenant' [yoked, beholden] to his people; and circumcision is the symbol of the covenant with G-d. Ps 78:7 That they might set their
hope [in Hebrew ksl - also means
fool and
loins] in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments. Speculating of a pun on ksl [fool, hope, loins] their 'hope cut off' in Christian terms could reference the cutting of the foreskin as a sign of the covenant, but hope 'cut' off in obstinate folly of jewish refusal to accept the new covenant with christ as saviour; use of such a pun may indicate a converso or marrano influence. The connection of the tower with the 'flight into Egypt' made in another thread would perhaps emphasis a doctrine of 'exile and redemption' running through the tarot sequence.
Kwaw