Alef = I-Bateleur or = Fou ?

Moonbow

Thank you Fulgour and Kwaw

I am also finding it very interesting, and will continue to read everyones thoughts.
 

Sophie

Kwaw - you continue to be eloquent - as ever. But why do you link alef with the Fool? ;) (I know, I'm a rottweiler). I'm not really convinced by your dismissal of the letters as numerals, given that these are the only numerals that exist in Hebrew. Alef doesn't mean one. It IS one. It also is one in the sense of first. In Kabbala it represents monotheism. The One G-d. (yes, I know, alef has many many layers of meanings we can explore - but surely "one" is the very first meaning?)

Silvia - very interesting thoughts! The bull was the symbol of the high neolithic age, when men settled and built cities and invented agriculture and war. A beginning? Or a second phase?

One other thing that convinces me, apart from alef, is beit, the house - a house is a feminine symbol in Judaism. Even without touching upon Kabbala, house and wife are practicually synonymous. In Kabbala, the house is the image of the feminine soul. La Papesse, no?

It's not necessary to link the Hebrew alphabet with Tarot - many people read quite happily without this. It adds another dimension to Tarot, like numbers, or geometry, another way of viewing life and G-d as contained in the Tarot. It's possible that Tarot was built that way, however, given that Kabbala and Tarot developed in the same geographical area and during a same timeline. But it need not have: it's a truism that good ideas that are close need not be thought of together - many people will think of similar things at the same time. Hence it is impossible to copyright ideas.
 

kwaw

Helvetica said:
Alef doesn't mean one. It IS one. It also is one in the sense of first. In Kabbala it represents monotheism. The One G-d. (yes, I know, alef has many many layers of meanings we can explore - but surely "one" is the very first meaning?)

In kabbalah, beit is usually considered first. Aleph is connected with Kether and Ain [nothing]. In the legend of the letters each of the letters came to god asking to be first in creation, from tau to aleph, each in turn G-d rejected until Beit; Beith was first in creation. Aleph never got a look in, aleph was the silence before god; the disregarded stone [letters are called 'stones' in kabbalistic tradition]. 'One' by the way is not a number, 'number' is plural, one is singular, and 'one' is only accounted as part of numeric progression in arithmetic. The Roman numeral one 'I' is a arithmetical number 1, the letter Aleph is the theological ONE, yesh and ain, being and nothingness. Aleph ONE and Roman 'I' have less in common than night and day.

Kwaw
 

Fulgour

kwaw said:
In the legend of the letters each of the letters came to god asking to be first in creation, from tau to aleph, each in turn G-d rejected until Beit; Beith was first in creation. Aleph never got a look in...
This makes a nice fairy tale, but according to the actual logic,
there could never be a first letter, and therefore not a second.

Each letter in turn would thus be forced to defer to the next,
since none could be first ~ even if you make the second first.
 

kwaw

Fulgour said:
This makes a nice fairy tale, but according to the actual logic,
there could never be a first letter, and therefore not a second.

Each letter in turn would thus be forced to defer to the next,
since none could be first ~ even if you make the second first.

Beautiful logic. Absurd as logic taken to its limits always is. Almost reminds me of Cusanus, except there is nothing in Cusanus quite like it, and as absurd as it is, totally anachrontistic. 9 out of 10 for the effort, nil point for content and relevance [to me IMHO - no doubt it will mean more to others who are more intelligent than myself and can recognise absolute truth as readily as yourself]. Yes, it's a fairytale, a myth, an allegory, and if your absolute logic can't intuit then......I refuse to rude. Let me put first my second [who is none].

There is an interesting old english word you know, 'nowt';

It means 'fool', 'ox' and 'nothing'

So perhaps it is just an English thing.

Kwaw
 

Fulgour

Hi Kwaw

All & Nothing = Trinity

Zero and One may be thought of as identical in terms of value.
If there is nothing but One, it is the same as if there were nothing.
Zero is All of Nothing, a One of Nowt, the complete total of Nil.

Two comes forward as the Opposite of One because it is One again,
One twice, and in effect, that is the same as having Zero and One.

So if One is no longer Zero, then you have Two.
As soon as you have Two, you have the difference
between One and Two ~ Three.

Three is therefore the first number: The Triadic Unity.
 

kwaw

Fulgour said:
Three is therefore the first number: The Triadic Unity.

Which is why, according to Christian cabbalists, 'Elohim' is plural.

Kwaw
 

kwaw

Fulgour said:
That's why it's so easy to match The Magician with Aleph.
It isn't about one single correlation, it's all 22 together :)

The mystery around The Fool's attribution is more about
the organic nature of the aplhabet: It's not a closed set.

No doubt this is true, and proponents of the alef-fool and other systems would claim the same thing too and no doubt it is true in their case also. That this should be so is not surprising and is testament to the multivalent power of the symbolism.

Kwaw
 

Fulgour

all over again

kwaw said:
No doubt this is true, and proponents of the alef-fool and other systems would claim the same thing too and no doubt it is true in their case also.
Which brings us to the 21st letter: 'Sin
(or the Germanic Shin)

"Rejoice" is the very singular meaning,
and this is shown on XXI Le Monde

Taw (Germanic Tav) means "Sign"
symbolically depicted on (22) Le Fol

The Fool is a Pied Piper ~ follow me...
back to the beginning: 'Aleph Le Bateleur
and the Magic show starts all over again.
 

Sophie

kwaw said:
In kabbalah, beit is usually considered first. Aleph is connected with Kether and Ain [nothing]. In the legend of the letters each of the letters came to god asking to be first in creation, from tau to aleph, each in turn G-d rejected until Beit; Beith was first in creation.

Aha, yes you are quite right - and beit is the first letter of Torah. BUT - it is a letter that shows created manifestation at its inception. Alef, then, is the letter that comes before, that literally kicks the creation in motion before it exists. That's why I see it as first, 1, I. - Le Bateleur, the Magus. The one who gets things going before creation (after all, you need something before the very first thing, the house, is created - that's the paradox of G-d - his spirit floating above the waters - alef). I can see, however, how you came to alef=Fool, if you take the Fool as the nothing (and yet, where is G-d?). But what of beit being feminine? Does that not intrigue you? How do you parallel beit and Le Bateleur, which is such a masculine principle?

kwaw said:
No doubt this is true, and proponents of the alef-fool and other systems would claim the same thing too and no doubt it is true in their case also. That this should be so is not surprising and is testament to the multivalent power of the symbolism.

Yes! This multivalent power also bears on the symbols of the Tarot irrespective of Kabbala equivalence - I've seen all sorts of variations of interpretations for Fool/Mat and Bateleur/Magus/Magician - and some sound very alike (as do some of the images of Fool and Bateleur). I'm not surprised there exists also this variety in the Kabbala correspondence of alef.