Enquiry into a Biblical Phrase

Rosanne

Thanks for your answers.
The way I look at it is this.
The 22 cards are a reflection of the Hebrew abjad or they are an artificial construct, which we have placed upon them.
If they are an artificial construct, you can assign them to whatever you like- which has been done to death in the last 50 years. Yoga-Cats-Myths- Fairies- what ever you decide.
Thats OK, by me, I have no quarrel with whatever a pack is about. Or how it is used.
For me, I keep getting this inkling (I refuse to use the word 'feeling' in case I have to stop thinking. ;) ) that the images were a description of language and the language describes a 'Truth'- not a Christian truth- we are good /bad and go to heaven or Hell. It did morph into that, and the 'Truth' of the 22 became a Christian story.I use it this way myself- even though I can glimpse another 'understory'.
What I want to know without becoming a Physicist is how this magic of language is explained in images. The Phoenician/Hebrew letters are the closest to what I am trying to understand.
The letters make words. They are Holy because they explain something. My example was 'Truth'
Tav-Mem-Aleph. To me that says.... 3.14/0/Round thing/Fool is on water planet and Breath(life) starts here. That is the magic of letters and language. That can be said in images. As long as the images correctly match the letters.
~Rosanne
 

kwaw

As LRichard says: there is no correlation between the numbering of the trumps and the letters as numbers. For one, any such breaks down after number 10, and two, there are only 21 numbered trumps and there are 22 letter/numbers. I personally doubt there was any original intention to correlate the two, and consider the appropriation of tarot into esoteric schemes to most likely be a later development.*

For my own purposes I first consider, without reference to the Hebrew letters, where does the fool make sense to me when considered as part of an allegorical sequence - and the most sense to me is at the beginning (albeit in general terms, as the old Italian proberb has it, he is 'here, there and everywhere'). Then I attribute them on a one to one sequential basis (using the TdM pattern, not the GD/Waite variation thereof#) and consider in what respect is this or that card may be likened to this or that letter. For example, in respect of Fool (un-number or zero) and Alef/One, there is the old myth of the letters God approaches to be first in creation and working backwards stops at Beth, in respect of which Alef is thus an exception in terms of the rest (21 letters approached and Alef not) just as the Fool is an exception (21 numbered trumps and the Fool). Kabbalistically, Beth (2) is symbolic of 'the beginning' not Alef (1) and thus appears appropriate in that respect to an attribution with Trump 1 as the beginning of the trump sequence. Each of the letters are said to draw upon a related Sefiroth, for example Alef to Keter (called 'Ain' - nothing in the Zohar) and Beth to Chokmah (called 'beginning' and 'primal point' in the Zohar), Gimel to Binah etc.

Moses Cordovero** explains in his 'Garden of Pomegranates' that Alef is the letter from which the rest are drawn^, and that the rest are split into three groups of seven - the first seven, commencing with Beth, are grouped under the rule of grace, the second seven are grouped into the rule of love, and the third under the rule of Judgment. Thus again, like we have the Fool and 21 trumps, we have Alef and then the other 21 letters (grouped into three groups of seven, as esotericists and occultists commonly do with the 21 trumps^^).

Kwaw

* Which may be taken to mean, as has been mentioned, that any arbitrary attribution may considered 'right'. But that is true enough any way, in as much as each of the letters are connected to each and every sefiroth. A relationship that is apparent if we model the paths in accordance with the Sefer Yetzirah, as ten concentric circles with 22 paths radiating from the center.

# I prefer the 'Fortune trumped by Fortitude' of the TdM pattern as more in keeping with renaissance humanist pairing of Fortune/Virtu (fortezza) as found for example in the works of Petrarch, Albierti. Mirandola, Bruno, etc., :

"Humanists often figured “the heroic ability to master Fortune” in Hercules... In Bruno’s ‘Explusion’, Fortune fails to usurp Hercules’ celestial place. He displays ‘fortezza’, “ the strength of the human will..., the ‘domitrice della fortuna... a heroic passion”, analogous to Machiavelli’s ‘virtu’ (“ability, power, forcefulness, industry, valor”), “often counterposed to the word Fortune”.

end quote from “English Revenge Drama” by Woodbridge, p.113.

** There are many schools of Kabbalah in Judaism, but for classification purposes can be described basically under two, Lurianic and non-Lurianic. Moses Cordovero was an exponent of pre-Lurianic kabbalah - and it is his work that mainly informed Christian and Hermetic Kabbalah (for example, the Tree of Life we are most familiar with from the Western Esoteric Schools is one of two described in Cordovero's 'Garden of Pomegranates - the GD also had another Tree in its cipher manuscripts but as far as I know no material in relation it has ever been published and probably was never written). Modern Judaic Kabbalah is mainly post-Gra Lurianic, thus one of the aspects in which the traditions have diverged (although there are some modern decks that have been made based upon Gra/Lurianic kabbalah and correspondences). Unlike the Western Esoteric Schools however, each of which likes to insist its own version is right and the others wrong - in Judaic Kabbalah each may be considered right at different times, or to different people or in different places according to individual understanding. Thus, up to the 20th century at least, the Zohar (in Mishnaic like fashion) would be published with commentaries by both Lurianic and non-Lurianic commentators, with no declamations of one being right or the other wrong (even though they may offer widely different and often opposing interpretations).

^ Just as the rest of the letters draw upon Alef, so we might say also that the Game of Tarot itself draws upon the special aspect of the Fool (indeed, so much so the very name of the Game - Tarocchi - most likely means 'Fool').

^^ And as I am inclined to do myself too. For as we find below the World with its symbols Ezekiel's chariot in the top row the Chariot in the bottom row, note too in similar fashion - below Judgement, which in Augustinian theology is an aspect of God's caritas (love), lies cupiditas (love, represented by Eros - together with an emblem of the two types of love); below the Sun is one of the two medieval 'lights of world' the Pope (attributed to the Sun); below the Moon the other of the two 'lights of the World' the Emperor (whose attribution as one of the two lights of the World is to the Moon); beneath the Star, symbol of the Virgin Mary Queen of Heaven, Empress of Hell, is the Empress; below the House of God is the Popesse, emblem of the RC Church; and below the trickster and deceiver the Devil is the trickster and deceiver the Bateleur.
 

re-pete-a

The conclusions I was led to was that the Force or whatever one wishes to call it was the forever persistent "PERPETUAL POTENTIAL" IN ALL THINGS.

Unlearned I know...not orthodox either...but...

it did lead me onto another deeper understanding beyond the I AM...Three steps further to be precise...A millisecond glance was enough to explain so much and that's all that was possible for me to handle at that time.

I know you'll think me awful but the un-nameable named, is a lowering .



Feeling and thinking go hand in hand.They're from the same source as the lowering.
 

Richard

......I'll try to find some sources, give me a few months and I'll know more. I think it is about time I went a bit further afield, and your question is the perfect excuse!
Aryeh Kaplan's book on the SY seems to be highly regarded by traditional Kabbalists, and it's very readable (except for the Hebrew quotations :(), with lots of anecdotes about various topics such as the Golem. It relates the SY to the real world rather than dwelling only on the abstract theoretical stuff. For example, the number of permutations of the Hebrew alphabet is approximately the same as the number of stars in the observable universe (and he outlines the mathematical argument). As far as I can tell, there is no mention of Mathers or GD. There is a reference to the Westcott translation of the SY. Kaplan is my kind of teacher.
 

re-pete-a

Beware of imitations...there are two kabalah ...
 

Rosanne

As LRichard says: there is no correlation between the numbering of the trumps and the letters as numbers. For one, any such breaks down after number 10, and two, there are only 21 numbered trumps and there are 22 letter/numbers. I personally doubt there was any original intention to correlate the two, and consider the appropriation of tarot into esoteric schemes to most likely be a later development.*
So an artificial construct then.

Moses Cordovero** explains in his 'Garden of Pomegranates' that Alef is the letter from which the rest are drawn^, and that the rest are split into three groups of seven - the first seven, commencing with Beth, are grouped under the rule of grace, the second seven are grouped into the rule of love, and the third under the rule of Judgment. Thus again, like we have the Fool and 21 trumps, we have Alef and then the other 21 letters (grouped into three groups of seven, as esotericists and occultists commonly do with the 21 trumps^^).
That makes sense to me.


Which may be taken to mean, as has been mentioned, that any arbitrary attribution may considered 'right'. But that is true enough any way, in as much as each of the letters are connected to each and every sefiroth. A relationship that is apparent if we model the paths in accordance with the Sefer Yetzirah, as ten concentric circles with 22 paths radiating from the center.
Do you mean unlike the tree? Like the rings of Jupiter?

.... would be published with commentaries by both Lurianic and non-Lurianic commentators, with no declamations of one being right or the other wrong (even though they may offer widely different and often opposing interpretations).
I have noticed this freedom of intellectual enquiry without censure. Very different from so called Western enquiry- which is like a Court- you only have the loudest argument winning.

^ Just as the rest of the letters draw upon Alef, so we might say also that the Game of Tarot itself draws upon the special aspect of the Fool (indeed, so much so the very name of the Game - Tarocchi - most likely means 'Fool').
Ummm...So Aleph is Magician and Fool like the Rosenwald Card sheet page 131 Kaplan Vol 1?

LRichard said...
For example, the number of permutations of the Hebrew alphabet is approximately the same as the number of stars in the observable universe (and he outlines the mathematical argument).
Yes of course! I likely did not explain my self clearly. The Phoenician Abjad as for example the L or Lamed was the crook of a goad and looked like a J. It evolved to L. What is the connection between the sound- that made the letter- that became the Hebrew- which has sort of Learning and teaching meaning- How is that the twelth letter in consideration of Tarot? So the same thing applies to the words "I am". I do not think I can get this right because the Hebrew Alphabet and Tarot is a forced thing. So I can do that. I take the Phoenician Abjab of 22 21+1 and draw that, which would not look like the images we have.
I would have made a 'Yoga' Tarot for example called "Phoenician" and add 56 Suit cards.
I was trying to see a connection between the Letter and the meaning.
~Rosanne
 

kwaw

Do you mean unlike the tree? Like the rings of Jupiter?

Yes, it requires a different model from the Tree of Life to demonstrate the relationship. Draw 10 concentric circles (to represent the 10 sefiroth, inside of each other); then draw 22 lines (to represent the 22 paths/letters) radiating from the center equidistant to each other to the outermost circle. Each of the 22 lines/letters/paths intersects with each circle/sefiroth. There are a total of 220 intersections (22x10) + the center = 221. In the earliest of the SY manuscripts these are referred to as the 221 gates (in later redactions, the figure of 221 is amended to 231 to reflect a different manner of formulation).


Ummm...So Aleph is Magician and Fool like the Rosenwald Card sheet page 131 Kaplan Vol 1?

No, Alef is Fool, Bateleur the beginning of the Trumps is Beth (Corresponding to Chokmah, beginning (reshith), point).

The Phoenician Abjad as for example the L or Lamed was the crook of a goad and looked like a J. It evolved to L. What is the connection between the sound- that made the letter- that became the Hebrew- which has sort of Learning and teaching meaning- How is that the twelth letter in consideration of Tarot? ...
I was trying to see a connection between the Letter and the meaning.
~Rosanne

In TdM ordering (with alef as fool) Strength corresponds with the Hebrew letter Lamed. The name Lamed (to learn/teach) refers to "The power to direct and control the animal instinct", hence its relationship as a hieroglyph of ox-goad. Its form is said to "represents the aspiration of the truly devoted pupil to learn from the mouth of the teacher."

Some corresponding Hebrew words:
LYBB – TO STRENGTHEN, MAKE COURAGEOUS ("the king took his son and made him courageous by making him attack the (tamed) lion" is one of the examples quoted in Jastrow); LBYA - LION.
 

Richard

......Yes of course! I likely did not explain my self clearly. The Phoenician Abjad as for example the L or Lamed was the crook of a goad and looked like a J. It evolved to L. What is the connection between the sound- that made the letter- that became the Hebrew- which has sort of Learning and teaching meaning- How is that the twelth letter in consideration of Tarot? So the same thing applies to the words "I am". I do not think I can get this right because the Hebrew Alphabet and Tarot is a forced thing. So I can do that. I take the Phoenician Abjab of 22 21+1 and draw that, which would not look like the images we have.......
The reason for the Hebrew letter correlations was esoteric, not linguistic. A one-to-one correspondence between Tarot cards in their natural order from 0 to 21 and the Hebrew alphabet from Aleph to Tau is not forced. It is as natural as the day is long. However, this alone does not justify it. Aside from the esoteric, why should one suspect any connection whatsoever between Tarot and an alphabet? I hate to be negative, but I really don't think any purely linguistic scheme will work consistently.

ETA. Oh rats! I messed up my nice round number of 3,000 posts! It's your fault, Rosanne. ;)
 

Rosanne

Oh alleluja! Thank you Kwaw!
The concentric rings with the gates makes perfect sense to me, whereas the tree does not.
I dream of that all the time, and really did not know what it meant. Me in my Chariot- like something out of an MGM Movie, playing some sort of Marble game in Giant size.

I have just seen LRichard's reply. I think it is linguistic, what I am trying to decipher.
Kwaw's answer about Lamed points to that. Aleph, for example is a breathing stop (originally) like Bulls do before they low(Moo). To me it explains Aleph- the breath before you say the word. That breath sound of an inside mouth ohhhh is the 'anywhere' sound and is fundamental to speech. Breath in, hear the sound. It is the first sound you made as a newborn- and really, you can say nothing(lol!) without it. I guess I am not very esotericly mindful.More exoteric.
~Rosanne
PS I am flattered LRichard that 3000 +1 was answering me.
 

Rosanne

I think that LRichard misunderstands me and I have been trawling through books to explain.
I found what I mean in a book by Kim Zetter called 'Simple Kabbalah'.
It also explains why I find a pattern of the Sefirot in a set of circles,with 22 rays rather than the usual tree, because I could not visualize Emanations as a tree. It has been a huge barrier to my understanding.

So here goes....
How creation progressed from mind to manifestation was, at least in part accomplished through language. As already mentioned, when Ein Sof emanated his energy into the black space, he sent it out on the power of the letter yud, and it was the four letters of the sacred name that 'propelled' the energy through the four levels of creation....snip...There are 22 letters, each one corresponds to a path- this delineates a path the energy takes from one sefira to another.
now..
We might dismiss the idea of letters and language being instruments of Creation as mere mythology of an unsophisticated people, but when we look at it more closely, we see that the idea is quite sophisticated. Remember the Torah is a history of the Universe up to and beyond the Life of Moses. It preexists events and even foretells them. It appears that, in some way, by saying it is so, it becomes so; by writing it down, the words create the thing itself.
This is the important bit...
Linguists and philosophers have long wrestled with the idea that a word cannot be the created thing itself, but only a representation of that thing. According to Kaballists, this is not the case with Hebrew. The word is the Thing; the essence of the thing is tied to it's name....snip.....The hebrew alphabet is seen by Kabbalists as a kind of code in which words are formulas for the things they express. In other words, the combination of different letters like m-a-y-i-m is a formula for water. Each letter represents a different energy or force, when combined, create the thing the word expresses.
So take the Hebrew word for Chair, see chair in your head and the word (if you know it- I do not.) change the letters so it spells something else that you know- and the chair is no longer there- that some thing else is. With the letters you have created- a creation. That is why malaprops are so funny/comedic.
My daughter when she was little was Miss Malaprop. Like "MUM! Look at that Octopus- it has hundreds of Testicles (Tentacles).She created in everyones head a picture that was hilarous and a new fictious creature was born. It is why depictions of Moses have Horns.
This forum is hundreds of words, and often misundertood.
When as a baby we 'Alephed' we started life manifest, if we did not 'aleph' we were dead.
Has that my quest clearer?
~Rosanne