Alef = I-Bateleur or = Fou ?

venicebard

There IS an answer to your question

firemaiden said:
So if the Fool were not to be Aleph, what should he be then, and what is its numerical value? Shin?

....
No. It is bardic H, Hebrew cheyt, Greek (h)eta, Irish huath the hawthorn—what hedges or separates, as does space, of which (as a Form or Idea) this sound is indicator (as you will discover through meditating on what distinguishes the sound H from the rest of the consonants or forms: it is mere wind, substance without solidity, dissipating into empty space, which it signifies). H is the letter given no-number as its numeration, just as A or alef was given one. The rest of the trumps apply to the letters in a very different way by the bardic method of numeration, though, than by the Hebrew-ordinal method, the latter being only a sort of secondary pun on the bardic method, which is paramount (older, more venerated) in tarot's design (the Marseilles).

We now return control of your illusions to 'you' (to reassert control, go back to basics). Just joking.
 

venicebard

jmd said:
With numbering, a distinction needs to be made between its cardinal and its ordinal value. For example, Peh has an ordinal value of seventeen, and Shin and ordinal value of 21.
...absolutely...
I have at various times mentioned that, at least in my personal view, if there is going to be an early or historically based correlation made between letter value and Hebrew letter, it is the ordinal value, rather than its cardinal, that is important.
This makes complete sense. It is certainly the way I would look at it in the absence of further evidence.
...I would suggest that it makes more sense to have the Fool as final card, allocated Tav, for then, each card number can be also seen as ordinal representation of letter value.
Makes more sense than ANY of the other modern methods... but it still leaves tav a mismatch.
Of course, we need to simultaneously remember that early extant decks were left, in any case, un-numbered.
And the earliest actual ones may well have been, which only makes the strict ranking of Marseilles order seem the more phenomenal, I mean, that it should have been so well-known to players.
Having it placed between cards XX and XXI breaks the 'obvious' ordinal value of the final two letters, and placing it before Alef breaks the ordinal value of all letters.
Quite so.
Yet, there is also no doubt that many have quite effectively seen sense and sensibilities in placing the Fool either as first card, as penultimate, or, as mentioned, as final.
Oh, quit being so ‘nice’, so politic: what you really mean is that you’re not completely sure all the symbolism lands right even by your method (which is at least reasonable) and are thus open to entertaining ideas at variance with yours. I say, in all friendliness, this is a difference between you and me: bardic method is of such solidity that ALL other ‘methods’ end up appearing like twisted wrecks (no offense).
In my personal view, and as mentioned elsewhere, it is neither Bateleur nor Fool who 'does the journey' (a concept in any case expounded more over the past thirty years than with early decks), but, rather, each individual.
(The journey is the round; for all journeys occupy time, and time takes one about the round.) Aye, Fool and Juggler are but steps on the way, like all the rest... except for three: the A or alef behind the juggler, the omega that was hidden by shin or shushing, and the mmm of sweetness (L’Amoureux). For these are the three parts of the self. But it’s true, they don’t really Go anywhere.

Forgive my ‘butting in’, all.

PS. Your style reminds me of a book I have that explains, quite well, the essential truths of Buddha’s thought for Jews and Christians: starts by saying sure the Theravada school’s teaching undoubtedly contains great truths, then proceeds to show conclusively that it has nothing, though, to do with what Gautama was preaching in the quote used to justify said teaching. Of course you put your disclaimer at the end and thereby weaken the effect (unless that’s what you’re after). Anyway, carry on.
 

jmd

In terms of my own preferred viewpoints, I have iterated them quite a number of times, and again, herein. There is no need to show them to the exclusion of variant viewpoints.

Of course, viewed from an adopted perspective, alternatives may indeed be 'appearing like twisted wrecks'. What I strive to have done in the past is to allow for those three mentioned principal perspectives to be given the chance to be seen in a positive light, and see if, as a consequence, some internal essential characteristic arises.

It possibly is, for such an exercise, of important matter to 'be nice', for without that sense of benevolent open-ness to an alternative, one's own prejudice may prevent clear vision.

Having said this, I have yet to give the time and effort to also take with equal measure the suggestions of an intrinsic 'bardic' (or Greek) connection.
 

firemaiden

venicebard said:
No. It is bardic H, Hebrew cheyt, Greek (h)eta, Irish huath the hawthorn—what hedges or separates, as does space, of which (as a Form or Idea) this sound is indicator (as you will discover through meditating on what distinguishes the sound H from the rest of the consonants or forms: it is mere wind, substance without solidity, dissipating into empty space, which it signifies). H is the letter given no-number as its numeration, just as A or alef was given one. The rest of the trumps apply to the letters in a very different way by the bardic method of numeration, though, than by the Hebrew-ordinal method, the latter being only a sort of secondary pun on the bardic method, which is paramount (older, more venerated) in tarot's design (the Marseilles).

We now return control of your illusions to 'you' (to reassert control, go back to basics). Just joking.

You would prefer the Fool to be Cheth? Why is that, because the sound is associated with breath? I see that the number associated with Chet is listed as eight.

Bardic? Does that mean Druidic? Is there something history hasn't told me, were the Druids Jewish?
 

mythos

jmd said:
With numbering, a distinction needs to be made between its cardinal and its ordinal value. .


Now for a question from the numeracy dyslexic here ... er ... what is the difference between 'cardinal' and 'ordinal'. I figure that 'ordinal' is 1, 2, 3, 4 ...etc, but 'cardinal' has me utterly confused, thus making it impossible to appreciate the points you are making jmd.

mythos:)
 

jmd

ordinal is 1st, 2nd, 3rd, ... = order

cardinal is one, two, three, ... = quantity

...now, if 'ordinal' stems from the root 'order', does 'cardinal' hinge from 'card' :angel:
 

mythos

jmd said:
...now, if 'ordinal' stems from the root 'order', does 'cardinal' hinge from 'card' :angel:

LOL - and there I was imagining a bunch of Churchy cardinal guys wearing funny hats ... what would I do without AT's? })

mythos :laugh:
 

Umbrae

Cardinals>card> do have a linguistic connection. And indeed to Tarot.

In the Middle Ages, there was a form of sport called nowadays, “Tweelsey Whopping”. Young boys played it (eventually with pillows) on what we in North America call ‘teeter-totters’, a board balanced on a fulcrum. However originally this was played by grown men (often the town ‘idiots’) armed with freshly smoked hams.

People would gather and watch in amusement as these grown men sat upon a balanced board, and would strike each other with large hams. Such was known in the colloquial sense as, “To ham a ham” and later gave us such terms as, “He’s such a ham.”

The church took a cut in the gambling’s and decreed that Cardinals should be present to referee the matches (and supervise ‘their take’). Soon the Cardinal Referees found it advantageous to ‘get in the way’ and be struck by one or more hams (accidentally) and wander about ‘stunned or dazed’. This was referred to as “hamming it up,” or as the local herald would cry, “He’s such a Card...”

Now how does this relate to Tarot and proper placement of the Fool?

Simple. What’s he got in the bag. A nicely smoked ham. And he falls between Resh and Tau. He struck the head and has thence won (made his mark).

Wha…? Oh…sorry…
 

Sophie

......Slam! Bam! Ham!

ooops, Umbrae's been hamming it ;)

Thanks for the laugh, friend :D

Now as to the Fool and his Ham...mmm, I guess if that is true, he would not be the Wandering Jew, then? Maybe he carries a kosher roast beef?
 

filipas

Rosanne said:
I was under the impression that The Hebrew Letter aleph meant among other things -power.
kwaw said:
As for alef 'means' one therefore corresponds to the card with the roman numeral 'I' on it fine, Aleph also means 'bull', as there is a bull on XXI do we therefore conclude alef = XXI 'Le Monde'.
Moonbow* said:
Why do we need to apply the Hebrew letters to tarot cards? Does it affect the way they are read, or is this for curiosity and to help close a few niggling puzzles in history?
While on one hand such correspondences can be a fascinating aspect of one's personal Tarot metaphysics, there are hints that an alphabet-trump connection may have historical relavance.


Moonbow* said:
I also remember reading this at the time and thinking... WOW! I'm sure you have all read Mark Filipas' Hebrew Alphabet:

http://www.spiritone.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Essays/alpha.html
kwaw said:
anyone with a biblical and rabbinical hebrew dictionary could do the same, according to their own preferences and with a totally different result [and without even making up words like TMPU, and still retain a chain].

With all the synonyms in kabbalistic literature not included in such dictionaries then the skies the limit [unfortunately, neither Mark or anyone else has been able to find the word TMPU in any hebrew dictionary or 'undictioned' use of the word in a kabbalistic text].

Mark says, and I am willing to believe him though he doesn't record his research, that his word list represents the 'best' of the alternatives that he has researched. He then goes on to say that such a 'best' is worthy of further investigation, despite the fact that the 'best' that he can find fits in with that which one would expect from 'coincindence'; which would lead on to think there is no correlation and Marks evidence, if true, disproves any correlation, and is unworthy of any further invesigation..

[As with any language there are many more words beginning with some letters than others. Mark's list reflects this, and is thus within what one may expect by chance, there is no statistical significance whatsover. If as Mark says this is the best fit, then we must conclude there is no 'lexiconical' correspondence between the Marseille and the Hebrew alphabet. Lists, as Mark says, can be made with any series, but having made alternative lists he says aleph-magician yields not only a 'majority' of words but a 'chain' within the series that others don't. Unfortunately when you look at his list his 'chain' depends upon an invented word [Tempu - and this is ignoring the 'stretches']; and statistically his opinion that 'most' equals 'statistically significant' is wrong. It would be far better for his argument if there were a limited number of words applicable to each card {say betqeen 4-6 each card} than 20+ for some and 1 or two for others, especially when this pattern matches the number of words per letter in the language and thus matches what you would expect by chance. If there were even four words for the letter that has the least number of words in the dictionary to match the corresponding card then this may indicate an element of design rather than chance - but according to Mark's 'best fit' there isn't].
The above critique is positing that the Hebrew lexicon -- which indeed presents a huge body of data to apply in correllation with the trumps -- is so large that virtually any correspondence can be made. Such a position can perhaps be attributed in part to the volume of lexicon-to-trump matches I've presented, some of those matches being more or less accurate 'hits' than others. Nonetheless, I chose to present a larger more inclusive body of matches because A) I considered that to abridge my findings would have been to apply too fine a personal screen onto the accuracy/innaccuracy of matches and therefore would have hampered those who wish to examine further for themselves, and B) there happen to be a large body of 'hits' when the two sets are aligned sequentially.

One problem with Kwaw's critique is the fact that focusing on the inherent difficulties in determing accuracy of the *entire* word list distracts from the lexical subsets within that list which form the actual legs of the case. One of those subsets is the alphabetic sequence of trump subjects (a topic best left for another thread); another subset is the Hebrew letter-name meanings. It bears repeating that many of the meanings usually attributed to the letter names are erroneous, and the facts need to be vigilantly stated if serious and objective research is to be invited. It should also be clarified that, from a historical context, our only relavant sources are those which represent that which was available at the time of the early Tarot, such as the Jastrow Dictionary which presents us with the following letter-meanings:

The name of the first letter aleph (ALP) is found in medieval lexicons as meaning 'to train oneself; to practice'. (ALP also means 'ox'.)

The name of the second letter bet (BYTh) was used to denote 'Temple' (Hullin Talmud; Midrash Shir hash-Shirim). (BYTh was also used as a euphamism for 'sexual intercourse' (Palestinean Talmud, IX, 12; Mikvaoth, VIII, 4; Niddah Talmud, 5), indicating a possible allusion to the medieval legend of Pope Joan. The most common translation of BYTh is 'house'.)

The name of the third letter gimel (GML, GYML) literally means 'pointed pole' and 'little yoke' (GYMVL), objects which could be said to correspond literally to the Empress' staff and to the object around her neck. (GML also means 'camel; camel driver; bridge; to wean; to ripen'.)

The name of the fourth letter daleth (DLTh) forms the root of the word DLThVThA, meaning 'conquered land' and 'possession' (Targanum, Proverbs XIX, 14, variant editions). (DLTh also means 'door'.)

The name of the fifth letter he (HA) forms the root of a word for 'faith' (HAMNH: Yalkut, Isaiah 296; Yalkut, Hosea 519; Tosefta, Baba Bathra Talmud, V, 8, variant editions). (It also translates to the exclamation 'Behold!' He (HA) does not mean 'window' as is usually claimed.)

The sixth letter vav (VV) literally means 'hook' (VV), which could be considered literally depicted as the arrowhead on Trump VI.

The name of the seventh letter zayin (ZYN) means 'armor' (ZYN) and 'implements of war' (ZYN), objects depicted literally on Trump VII.

The eighth letter chet (ChYTh) is the root of the medieval word ChYThVK meaning 'judgement, verdict', corresponding easily with the eighth figure of Justice. (Chet does not mean 'field' as is usually claimed.)

The name of the ninth letter tet (TYTh) has no literal meaning. (it does not mean 'staff' or 'snake' as is sometimes claimed.)

The name of the tenth letter yud (YD) literally means 'axle' and 'handle', objects depicted literally on Trump X. (It also means 'power, authority, possession', perhaps corresponding with the enthroned figure with crown and sword. Yud also means 'hand'.)

The name of the eleventh letter kaph (KP) literally means 'hand' and 'the power to subdue', meanings depicted literally in Trump XI. (It is also the root of the word KPP, meaning 'to force', 'to conquer'.)

The name of the twelfth letter lamed (LMD) means 'to be affixed to', which could be considered literally depicted in the image of a hanged man. (It also means 'to teach a lesson', one idea suggested by this allegory. It does not mean 'oxgoad' as is usually claimed.)

The name of the thirteenth letter mem (MM) begins the Hebrew word MMVThA, meaning 'death'.

The name of the fourteenth letter nun (NVN) literally means 'fish'.

The name of the fifteenth letter samech (SMK) means 'prop' or 'support', suggesting the object upon which the devil (STN) stands. It also means 'to join together', suggesting the figures bieng chained to the ring.

The name of the sixteenth letter ayin (OYN) literally means 'eye', as well as 'evil eye' (Baba M’tsi‘a Talmud, 30; 107b; N’darim Talmud, 50), suggesting destruction from an unseen source.

The name of the seventeenth letter peh (PH) literally means 'open vessels' (Tosefta T’rumoth V, II), objects depicted literally on the corresponding Trump. It also means 'mouth' and 'orifice' and was used as a euphemism for 'orifice of the womb' (Sanhedrin Talmud, 100a) suggesting a possible correlation to the vessel placed between the maiden’s legs and to the Fremch title of the card ' Le Tiolle'.

The name of the eighteenth letter tzaddi (TzDY) literally means 'to make desolate', a meaning which suggests the total Solar eclipse which was depicted on so many Marseilles versions of the card. (Tzaddi does not mean 'fish-hook' as is usually claimed.)

The name of the nineteenth letter qoph (QVP) is the root of the word for 'wall' (QVPYA), an object depicted literally on the card. Qoph also means 'turn of the year'.

The name of the twentieth letter resh (RYSh) means 'head', 'chief', 'beginning'. More significantly, a parallel spelling (RYS) means 'to lift up, to raise'.

The name of the twenty-first letter shin (ShN) literally means 'tooth' as well as 'claw', 'horn', and 'hoof', all suggestive of the creatures depicted on Trump XXI.

The name of the twenty-second letter tav (TYV) means 'mark; sign', and begins a medieval Hebrew word for 'wandering' (TYVBA).

What we have in this single lexical sequence is statistically significant: ignoring the more tenuous (yet still significant) correlations, there are at least 15 literal matches between letter-name meaning and trump iconography (bet, gimel, he, vav, zayin, chet, yud, kaph, lamed, mem, samech, peh, tzaddi, qoph, shin) when these are paired sequentially. In other words, from a historical standpoint, this single leg of the argument gives enough reason to investigate an early alphabet-trump connection further.

Thanks,
- Mark