Hebrew Alphabet & Tarot

Do you believe Tarot was originally based on the Hebrew alphabet?

  • Yes

    Votes: 5 5.7%
  • No

    Votes: 68 77.3%
  • It seems likely, even if unproven

    Votes: 4 4.5%
  • I don't know

    Votes: 11 12.5%

  • Total voters
    88

moderndayruth

Teheuti said:
Would you like to say something about your reason? I know it's scary when you might get jumped all over, but I'd really like to hear your thinking on this.
Lol, sure :D I don't mind getting 'jumped all over ';)
I realise that hystorical evidence of the connectedness does not exist, and i personally studied Kabbalah indipendently of my Tarot studies, yet the deeper and further i went with both studies, the more i became aware of resonances. As per how based in reality they are - i suggest Rachel Pollack's
Seventy - Eight Degrees of Wisdom, pages 4-6, and Dovid Krafchow's book Kabbalistic Tarot (Hebraic Wisdom in the Major and Minor Arcana).
I am far from claiming Tarot IS based on Kabbalah, but to me personally synchronicity between the Major Arcana and the symbolism of Hebrew alephbet is obvious ;)
 

Greg Stanton

Teheuti, my thought is that if Christians (or Christian Kabbalists) created a tarot with Hebrew letters (or Kabbalistic correspondences) in mind, they would have made it obvious by at least making the letters part of the design of the cards. I don't see any reason for them to hide this. Polyglot bibles were produced throughout Europe from the 16th century onward. The Kabbala was not considered heresy, especially in its contemporary Christian incarnation. The Medieval/Papal Inquisition ended in the 13th century (before tarot was invented), and the Spanish Inquisition was confined largely to Spain (after the first tarots emerged). The Roman Inquisition would have been a problem, but it began in the late 16th-century, after tarot had spread to other European countries. I have never seen a pre-18th century tarot with Hebrew lettering, though if one were to emerge I would gladly eat my words :)
 

Teheuti

moderndayruth said:
I am far from claiming Tarot IS based on Kabbalah, but to me personally synchronicity between the Major Arcana and the symbolism of Hebrew alephbet is obvious ;)
It sounds to me more like you're in the camp of: "It seems likely, even if unproven."
 

Greg Stanton

moderndayruth said:
I realise that hystorical evidence of the connectedness does not exist, and i personally studied Kabbalah indipendently of my Tarot studies, yet the deeper and further i went with both studies, the more i became aware of resonances.
But don't you think this has more to do with the fact that Kabbalah is an inherently flexible philosophy that was designed to be applied to every facet and nuance of life? Your studies should have led you to understand that tarot was altered to fit Kabbalistic concepts -- it does not fit easily onto the traditional (pre-Golden Dawn) tarot.
 

moderndayruth

Greg Stanton said:
Your studies should have led you to understand that tarot was altered to fit Kabbalistic concepts -- it does not fit easily onto the traditional (pre-Golden Dawn) tarot.

Greg, i am happy for you having firm beliefe (obvious from the imperative tone of your post ) that you personally know where my studies lead :)
Teheuti, i am firmly in the 'yes' camp, but to avoid pointless discussions, since i don't have intent to force my beliefs onto others (and i am not looking for contra evidence since my beliefes are meaningful to me) i worded my beliefs (we are talking beliefs here, right?) in a way that wouldn't be offensive to other members beliefs :)
 

thorhammer

I voted "No", mainly for the reasons others have stated before me, though I must confess entire ignorance of the cultural un-likelihood of a Hebrew pictorial representation of the alphabet.

Don't get me wrong - I think the Kabbalistic associations to the Tarot are useful, powerful and profound. But I think that the parallels are coincidental at best; more likely I suspect that the earlier Tarot was altered to fit with the Hebrew alphabet.

\m/ Kat
 

Rosanne

Greg Stanton said:
Rosanne, I didn't say that early Jewish visual art doesn't exist, just that it is very, very rare. I don't believe 15th century Jews would have, or even could have, produced a tarot. It simply wasn't in line with their culture at the time.
I agree they would not have created Tarot or used the letters because they believed they came from G-d. You are wrong though about very very rare visual Art as I tried to explain before.
circa 1320 - look at the style of the Golden Haggadah and consider the Gothic like Visconti with it's tooled background. It is exceptional and not a rare example.

http://www.scholarsresource.com/browse/museum/5958
6th 7th and 8th images
There was no discernible Jewish style which would have straight away told their provenance. Francesco Sforza apparently was so broke at one stage, that he sold all his belongings including Manuscripts to a Jewish Banker/Broker in Ancona- who because of their friendship held on to them until Sforza became Duke of Milan. I always think the Hermit that same Jew with his annual by law interest rate for one year only.There were many anthropomorphic Hebrew alphabets also- some gilded like Jewels.Zoomorphic too lol.
~Rosanne
 

cardlady22

That is an interesting line of thought. I had heard about people treating anything with His name on it as holy, but the idea of actually writing the letters on something like a pack of playing cards does seem like it would be a no-no.
 

venicebard

Funny, none of the options apply to my view, so I could not answer the poll question; but I will comment anyway.

It is quite clear to me that the source of tarot trumps is a tradition surrounding letters, but not Hebrew letters directly, as they are demonstrably based on the tree-letters of Brito-Irish bardic tradition, to which they are correlated by their numbering there, not by their Hebrew or Greek numbers, bardic tradition having come to the Continent riding on the back of the 'matter of Britain'—although after reading Filipas I would not rule out another layer of symbolism related to Hebrew numbering as well (probably as a blind).

The bardic letters themselves do have a one-to-one correspondence with Hebrew letters, a fact that becomes particularly apparent upon application of Graves's hypothesis of two letters not included in the 20-letter ogham sequence (in other words, that were kept secret), one of which is Ii (double I), standing for mistletoe (ixias in Greek) or loranthus: these hover above ground (rooted in trees), just as square-Hebrew yod hovers above the line on which one writes. The correlations are often quite striking, as with Q, quert the apple, which still has the form of fruit-with-stem.

Certain facts arising directly from Hebrew letters do inform the trumps, though. For the bards knew both alphabets (and Greek, of course). One rather vivid example is trump II LaPapesse (in the original deck, that is, meaning the Marseilles). The hangings above her on this trump combine with the oblong shape clasping together her cloak to produce the shape of lovers (their loins, anyway) about to engage in the carnal act (to which seated Papess is, of course, oblivious), with the oblong shape being the erect phallus of the male, specifically a circumcised phallus: this is because by bardic numeration 2 is E, eadhe, quivering aspen, which corresponds to the letter heh in Hebrew, which was the letter added to Abram to make Abraham to mark the covenant of circumcision. Moreover, its place among the twelve 'simple letters' is scorpio, the privates (as hinted in its being 'quivering' aspen, symbol of extreme sensitivity), though in the reordering of letters represented by the alef-bet, it has moved to aries.

The above statements can all be backed up by exhaustive argument, of course (or I wouldn't say them). I’ll shut up now, but I thought my perspective might be of interest to someone out there.
 

Greg Stanton

Rosanne said:
I agree they would not have created Tarot or used the letters because they believed they came from G-d. You are wrong though about very very rare visual Art as I tried to explain before.
circa 1320 - look at the style of the Golden Haggadah and consider the Gothic like Visconti with it's tooled background. It is exceptional and not a rare example.

http://www.scholarsresource.com/browse/museum/5958
6th 7th and 8th images
Thanks, Rosanne. These are great examples. I do not believe I've ever seen an illuminated Hebrew MS before. I'm going to have to explore this further. Doubtful I'll come up with any tarot-like images, but if I do I'll give a shout!