Majors Hebrew Letters Assignments?

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 13 Dec 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.

northsea	13 Dec 2004
Hey people, what system do you prefer for assigning the Hebrew letters to the Majors? The systems I can think of are the GD, the Continental, the Spanish, and Elksinger. Elksinger believes (or at least I think he believes) that Aleph should be assigned to the Magician,and so forth. I haven't decided whether or not to make such assignments, and if so, which system, so I'm interested in hearing opinions about this.

Fulgour	13 Dec 2004
When I first started learning different card meanings anytime I came across Kabbalah or Hebrew letters I skipped that chapter in the books. It all seemed so forced and like it was about making it so complicated. But the Hebrew alphabet used isn't even the modern one, but a long 'extinct' variation, based upon the Phoenician. Thousands of years ago, the Chaldean astrologers worked out all the details, in a very simple and understandable way. The 22 Major Arcana cards, starting with One The Magician, correspond to the ancient Phoenician letters. It's that simple. But the alphabet they created was a map of the heavens...

northsea	13 Dec 2004
Thanks for your reply, Fulgour... that explains much. The Chaldeans' wealth of knowledge is very intriguing.

Vincent	13 Dec 2004
northsea wrote: Hey people, what system do you prefer for assigning the Hebrew letters to the Majors? The systems I can think of are the GD, the Continental, the Spanish, and Elksinger. Elksinger believes (or at least I think he believes) that Aleph should be assigned to the Magician,and so forth. I haven't decided whether or not to make such assignments, and if so, which system, so I'm interested in hearing opinions about this. It really depends on which deck you are using. For example, if you are using a Golden Dawn derived deck such as the RWS then Aleph is the Fool, Beth is the Magician and so on. The symbolism of the deck is set up to reflect this ordering. In the same way the Thoth deck is set up to symbolise Crowley's slightly varying attributions. A deck like any of the Marseilles variants seem to have no symbolism relevant to letter attribution, so you could impose any system of attribution you wish to on one of these decks without fear of contradiction, or error. There doesn't appear to be any one true way of assigning trumps to letters. No matter what the authors of various decks, or Tarot enthusiasts might claim, all attributions of trumps to Hebrew letters are arbitrary. There are problems of logic with whatever system you use, which reflects the probability that the number of trumps being equal with the letters of the Aleph-Bet is no more than coincidence. This is not to say that someone might, one day, find conclusive proof that a correlation does/did exist, but any such claimed evidence should be regarded with extreme skepticism. Having said that, many Tarot decks provide a very good way of studying the Western Hermetic version of the Qabalah. As Crowley says; "The only theory of ultimate interest about the Tarot is that it is an admirable symbolic picture of the Universe, based on the data of the Holy Qabalah." Vincent

Fulgour	14 Dec 2004
"Reminiscent of similar examples contemporaneous to it, the Marseilles designs appear to allude visually to the Hebrew letterforms themselves." ~ Mark Filipas Click on to Read

Fulgour	14 Dec 2004
Tarot is not Kabbalah. Kabbalah is not Tarot. *

closrapexa	14 Dec 2004
Fulgour wrote: But the Hebrew alphabet used isn't even the modern one, but a long 'extinct' variation, based upon the Phoenician. Thousands of years ago, the Chaldean astrologers worked out all the details, in a very simple and understandable way. Could you please clarify that for me? ?In the Thoth and others, I recognize the letters as the same that I use everyday.

Fulgour	14 Dec 2004
Hi Closrapexa, You may have some very interesting information for me that my amateur studies have led me to confusion about. My impression has been that, just like with Old English, the Hebrew we see used in the Tarot is no longer in use. I am definitely one of those people that learns from my mistakes, and very often it is through happy discoveries like what you are saying to me now. Please do elaborate! ~Fulgour * Old Hebrew and Modern Jewish http://www.ancientscripts.com/hebrew.html Phoenician Alphabet http://phoenicia.org/alphabet.html

closrapexa	14 Dec 2004
I see where the confusion may have come up. First, a short history lesson:) Hebrew lettering has changed remarkably little over the centuries. The letters that appear on your links are the hebrew letters that are used today in Israel. Now, there are two types of hebrew letters. The print type, which is used in formal writing and, well anywhere. Then there is the writing script, that is used exclusively by people when they write. It is a rounder type with more of a flow than the type script. Hebrew was more or less a dead language until the beginning of the last century, when a man called Ben Yehuda saw that while the Jews were scattered accross the globe, more and more were coming to live in Palestine, and that they had no language to unite them. Most jews up until that time spoke the toungues that they had learnt in their homelands, and Yiddish was especially popular among those of Eastern-European descent, while Ladino was used in Spain, Turkey and Greece. What Ben Yehuda did was simply codify the language and create a dictionary, the first ever, and it began to be taught in schools in Palestine and, later, Israel. Now, there is no "modern" Hebrew lettering since the language kind of stopped developing centuries ago, and was spoken only in religious circles. There were other forms of lettering. There is the Rashi script, which was used to write commentary on the Torah. Hebrew was not used since the letters were thought to be holy, and should not be used for secular things. However, these letters are very different from the normal hebrew letters and are no longer used. They can be "decoded" as it were, if one has the key, but, again, unless you are a student of theology, there is little reason to do so, since Rashi's writings have been transcribed into modern hebrew. The language he wrote in, however, was hebrew, just in different mode of lettering.

RedMaple	14 Dec 2004
Clorasplexa, Thank you so much for clarifying this. I have long been frustrated with the attributing of Hebrew letters to the Torah. I love the letters, but the way I understand them does not seem to follow the numbers assigned to the Major Arcana - with rare exceptions. (Like Aleph for the Fool -- I do like that.) I am just a beginner in my studies of Hebrew (married-in and converted) and don't use it everyday as you do, but have heard and used it in prayer and blessings for over 30 years. I am fascinated with the three-letter roots for words, and the poetry and resonance that lends to the language. (For example, that Shalom has its root in the word for "wholeness" and that "Tzedaka" has its root in "justice".) How do you feel about the correlations of Hebrew letters to Tarot? I sometimes feel it was just 19th century exoticism.

Fulgour	14 Dec 2004
Greek, Latin, and Hebrew would have been among the languages familiar to the highly accomplished intellectuals and astrologers who created the Tarot. I shall however henceforth specify Phoenician when referring to the underlying alphabet of significance in the 22 Major Arcana card astrological associations. 5000 years ago or more, modern written languages emerged, containing the basic reality of Awareness.

Fudugazi	14 Dec 2004
Fulgour wrote: I shall however henceforth specify Phoenician when referring to the underlying alphabet of significance in the 22 Major Arcana card astrological associations. 5000 years ago or more, modern written languages emerged, containing the basic reality of Awareness. How about Linear A and B ;) of the Chaldeans, or was that the Sumerians (and what's the difference - Ur being in Chaldea and in Sumeria). Dazed and confused but interested.

Fulgour	14 Dec 2004
Helvetica wrote: How about Linear A and B ;) of the Chaldeans, or was that the Sumerians (and what's the difference - Ur being in Chaldea and in Sumeria). Dazed and confused but interested. It wasn't so much that I went and found the answers in the Phoenician alphabet, but that I carried around a few basic questions for a long time and finally ended up that far back. Mesopotamia and Babylonia, Chaldeans and Sumerians, the origins of writing and astrology lead to this source. Am I wrong about a lot of things, yes. Am I right at all, yes. Scholars presume to know things and yet it's only to deny what persistent seekers will eventually discover themselves. You've heard it before, but let me say: the truth is out there.

Vincent	14 Dec 2004
Fulgour wrote: Greek, Latin, and Hebrew would have been among the languages familiar to the highly accomplished intellectuals and astrologers who created the Tarot. You know who created the Tarot? This is a question that has long puzzled everyone and anyone who has studied its history in any serious manner Have you made your findings known to the history forum? Vincent

Fudugazi	14 Dec 2004
Vincent wrote: You know who created the Tarot? This is a question that has long puzzled everyone and anyone who has studied its history in any serious manner The rain that fell on the trees that grew to be cut and carved into woodblocks. The stones and flowers that were crushed into pigments, that were mixed into paint and pasted over the woodblocks. Each hand that carved, each eye that saw the curvature of an arum lily and decided to copy it or the glint of a jewelled robe, or blood on a sword. Every wandering minstrel that donned a silly hat, was kicked out of town and couldn't afford to repair his clothes - or was too crazy to care that they were torn and showing his backside to the moon. Everyone who counted from 1 to 21 and decided to add a no-number card, just for fun, to mix people up, to give their game a twist, to show the uncertainty and anarchy at the heart of life. Every skeleton that fell out of the cupboard, every man torn between two women, or woman between two men. The friendship cup that was passed raucously around a corporation banquet and spilt on the ground, and given as a token to a queen. The lantern that lit a lone man's study at midnight, as he drew yet another astrological chart, wrote in a wide hand a hebrew letter next to it, and next to that, placed a piece of coloured cardboard that bore the handpainted miniature of a lone man carrying a lamp... All these, and a million others, created tarot.

Vincent	14 Dec 2004
Helvetica wrote: The rain that fell on the trees that grew to be cut and carved into woodblocks. The stones and flowers that were crushed into pigments, that were mixed into paint and pasted over the woodblocks. Each hand that carved, each eye that saw the curvature of an arum lily and decided to copy it or the glint of a jewelled robe, or blood on a sword. Every wandering minstrel that donned a silly hat, was kicked out of town and couldn't afford to repair his clothes - or was too crazy to care that they were torn and showing his backside to the moon. Everyone who counted from 1 to 21 and decided to add a no-number card, just for fun, to mix people up, to give their game a twist, to show the uncertainty and anarchy at the heart of life. Every skeleton that fell out of the cupboard, every man torn between two women, or woman between two men. The friendship cup that was passed raucously around a corporation banquet and spilt on the ground, and given as a token to a queen. The lantern that lit a lone man's study at midnight, as he drew yet another astrological chart, wrote in a wide hand a hebrew letter next to it, and next to that, placed a piece of coloured cardboard that bore the handpainted miniature of a lone man carrying a lamp... All these, and a million others, created tarot. Ahh... the same people that created Usenet then? Vincent

closrapexa	15 Dec 2004
RedMaple wrote: Clorasplexa, How do you feel about the correlations of Hebrew letters to Tarot? I sometimes feel it was just 19th century exoticism. I know too little about the Kabbalah to have any view about the subject, but I do know that it underwent a process of "christianization" over the years. I doubt the greatest Kaballists like the Ari would have any clue as to why and how the corrleations were set.

Fulgour	15 Dec 2004
RedMaple wrote: I love the letters, but the way I understand them does not seem to follow the numbers assigned to the Major Arcana - with rare exceptions. (Like Aleph for the Fool -- I do like that.) I would never suggest someone go against their own ideas, but Aleph as The Fool was made as a change from the idea. Aleph is First. The Magician is One. There is not lot to say. Also, if you use the Alphabet, from Alpeh to Tav, how can it be but that any one change changes all and everything.

Fudugazi	15 Dec 2004
Fulgour wrote: I would never suggest someone go against their own ideas, but Aleph as The Fool was made as a change from the idea. Aleph is First. The Magician is One. There is not lot to say. Also, if you use the Alphabet, from Alpeh to Tav, how can it be but that any one change changes all and everything . That's why the Fool is unnumbered. Not Aleph, not Tav, not any number in between. He just is.

Baneemy	15 Dec 2004
Helvetica wrote: How about Linear A and B ;) of the Chaldeans, or was that the Sumerians (and what's the difference - Ur being in Chaldea and in Sumeria). Dazed and confused but interested. Linear A and B were used by the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations, respectively, not the Chaldeans or the Sumerians. The Sumerians and the Chaldeans did indeed live in the same place, but at different times, and they were two distinct cultures. (Your question is like asking what's the difference between Celts and Anglo-Saxons since they both live in Britain.) Neither culture used an alphabetic script, so their languages wouldn't be of much use for letter-card correspondences.

Baneemy	15 Dec 2004
Fulgour wrote: I would never suggest someone go against their own ideas, but Aleph as The Fool was made as a change from the idea. Aleph is First. The Magician is One. There is not lot to say. I agree. Beth has always been associated with the number 2 (in fact, it is the number 2; the same symbol is used as both a letter and a numeral in Hebrew, and the same goes for the rest of the alephbet). Making the Fool alpeh and the Magician beth does violence to the traditional Hebrew number-letter correspondences. The tarot trumps are numbered linearly from 1 to 21, and the Hebrew letters are numbered decimally from 1 to 400, so any mapping between the two is bound to screw up the numerology.

Fulgour	15 Dec 2004
Helvetica wrote: That's why the Fool is unnumbered. Not Aleph, not Tav, not any number in between. He just is. 19 The Sun :: XVIIII Le Soliel (Click On Image) Here I often think that we're seeing "Aleph meets Tav" in the sense of completion of the circle. Not from A to Z but from initiation to realisation ~ I think The Sun is like the final act, Judgement the applause, and The World is the encore ~ followed of course by Le Bateleur who will start the whole thing over again: Aleph, The Magician... And where is The Fool? Always either coming or going, here or there, in at the end and right at the beginning.

Fulgour	15 Dec 2004
Helvetica wrote: The rain that fell on the trees that grew to be cut and carved into woodblocks. The stones and flowers that were crushed into pigments, that were mixed into paint and pasted over the woodblocks. Each hand that carved, each eye that saw... Tarot brings us together in so many ways, and it is lovely to read these words and enjoy the warmth and generosity of kindness and understanding. Would that all were thus.

Fulgour	15 Dec 2004
Baneemy wrote: The Sumerians and the Chaldeans did indeed live in the same place, but at different times, and they were two distinct cultures. "The hunger of the wolfen at the night church on the war day did not betoken nature's end but a majestic transformation, like cat magic ~ languid and gray: wolf of shadow." ~Billy And so it would seem with Hebrew letters and the Majors...

Fudugazi	15 Dec 2004
Fulgour wrote: 19 The Sun :: XVIIII Le Soliel (Click On Image) Here I often think that we're seeing "Aleph meets Tav" in the sense of completion of the circle. Not from A to Z but from initiation to realisation ~ I think The Sun is like the final act, Judgement the applause, and The World is the encore ~ followed of course by Le Bateleur who will start the whole thing over again: Aleph, The Magician... And where is The Fool? Always either coming or going, here or there, in at the end and right at the beginning. Oh I like that! Coming or going...I like to think he belongs *between* numbers - in a kind of world between the worlds, which allows him to be everywhere and nowhere - popping up when you don't expect him. The Hebrew equivalent of that? I'm not sure about ancient times, but I can't help thinking of Gimpel the Fool...

Vincent	15 Dec 2004
RedMaple wrote: Clorasplexa, Thank you so much for clarifying this. I have long been frustrated with the attributing of Hebrew letters to the Torah. I love the letters, but the way I understand them does not seem to follow the numbers assigned to the Major Arcana - with rare exceptions. (Like Aleph for the Fool -- I do like that.) The Golden Dawn took this approach of attributing the cards to letters, and it does make sense in a mathematical way. The first Trump (Fool 0) goes with the first letter. As Crowley says; "The secret of the initiated interpretation, which makes the whole meaning of the Trumps luminous, is simply to put this card marked "0" in its natural place, where any mathematician would have put it, in front of the number One." Of course this doesn't sit too well with anyone who can not see the difference between the Roman numeral of the card, and the numerical value of the Hebrew letter assigned to it. But no matter how you assign the letters to trumps there will always be anomalies, particularly with the Fool. Other systems don't attribute the letters to trumps, but to the Sephiroth, a model which has its own problems. Nevertheless, the nature of Qabalah is such that correspondences can be found between any letter and any trump or Sephira, thus justifying almost any system of attributions. RedMaple wrote: How do you feel about the correlations of Hebrew letters to Tarot? I sometimes feel it was just 19th century exoticism. Yes, all systems are arbitrary. Kabbalah makes no mention of Tarot, and early Tarot makes no mention of Kabbalah. Although occultists, (and others) have desperately tried to make some ancient connection to the Kabbalah, there appears to be no historical evidence of anything earlier than around 1780. This supposed connection was later taken up by the 19th century occultists. Occultists love to claim sources that are either supernatural, as in the case of the Golden Dawn, or of great antiquity, such as Court de Gebelin in 1780. Someone who had proof of a connection between Tarot and Kabbalah before that date would become an instant celebrity in the field of Tarot history, so skepticism of any such claims would be prudent. Vincent

RedMaple	16 Dec 2004
Fulgour wrote: I would never suggest someone go against their own ideas, but Aleph as The Fool was made as a change from the idea. Aleph is First. The Magician is One. There is not lot to say. Also, if you use the Alphabet, from Alpeh to Tav, how can it be but that any one change changes all and everything . Aleph is before the first. Aleph is the sound before speaking, the sound you make before you make every sound. The first letter of the Torah is Bait (Beresheet - In the beginning...), for this very reason. Your logic is Aristotelian, not Jewish.

Baneemy	16 Dec 2004
Fulgour wrote: "The hunger of the wolfen at the night church on the war day did not betoken nature's end but a majestic transformation, like cat magic ~ languid and gray: wolf of shadow." ~Billy And so it would seem with Hebrew letters and the Majors... Not sure what you're getting at, but.... vive Whitley!

Fulgour	16 Dec 2004
RedMaple wrote: Your logic is Aristotelian, not Jewish. Thank you for giving me credit for having some sort of a logic, though I'm not sure what any of this has to do with Aristotle. And since I'm not sure there even is a Jewish Tarot what now, but to ask what we can talk about to please your interests :)

northsea	17 Dec 2004
It sounds like there's as much consensus about Hebrew letter assignments as there is with rune assigments. :)

kwaw	18 Dec 2004
Baneemy wrote: I agree. Beth has always been associated with the number 2 (in fact, it is the number 2; the same symbol is used as both a letter and a numeral in Hebrew, and the same goes for the rest of the alephbet). Not always no, there is no evidence for such usage prior to the Maccabean period, and was probably an adaption of Hellenistic practice, greek letter-number correspondence and symbolism being far older. There is far more biblical exegesis based upon letter numerology and symbolism to be found within Christian and gnostic exegesis of the Greek new testament and apocrypha than anything comparitive to be found in Hebrew prior to the middle ages. Quote: Making the Fool alpeh and the Magician beth does violence to the traditional Hebrew number-letter correspondences. Why? Do the Roman numerals denote value? By which I mean for example in a game of tarot does the 'World' score 21, or the 'Devil' 15, 'WoF' 10? If they do then as you mentioned the correspondence with Hebrew letter/numerals after 10 breaks down anyway. But IMO the roman numerals better describe sequence and rank rather than value, ie 1st, 2nd, 3rd rather than 1,2,3. If we take the Magician's roman numeral 'I' as implying 'first' there is no violence done to traditional hebrew letter symbolism in attributing the letter Beit to it, the letter Beit has a long association with the concept of 'first' in traditional hebrew letter symbolism. Traditional symbolism of the letter Aleph too fits perfectly well with the card without number, the 'Fool', as has been gone over many times in other threads [see 'kabbalah' forum] already. Kwaw

Fulgour	18 Dec 2004
It remains that there are 22 Tarot cards in the Major Arcana, and 22 Hebrew (Phoenician) letters. Without any great effort we can easily see exactly how they match. The Fool is TAV.

jmd	18 Dec 2004
This is indeed an area that has many wonderful diverse discussion attendent to it - one of which is that thread in which many of us have also contributed, viz: Hebrew letter Tarot correlations. With regards to the 'violence' to the Hebrew sequence that Baneemy mentions seems to me to be more a matter of regarding the sequence of letters not only in their cardinal value (1 - 400), but also, and importantly, in their ordinal value (1st to 22nd). When Crowley says that 'The secret of the initiated interpretation [...] is simply to put this card marked "0" in its natural place', he certainly either makes a huge assumption that any card is 'naturally' so numbered, or that the GD and its derivatives were somehow of higher initiatic tradition then the forebears from which Wescott obtained the idea in the first place. Of course, if someone decides to number one of their cards (even if the otherwise un-numbered Fool) with a zero, this does indeed force its mathematical location. In the process, however, another possibility is also lost, with perhaps also a loss of that 'which which makes the whole meaning of the Trumps luminous'. Alef certainly comes before Beit, and this last begins creation (and begins the opening of Genesis)... still, in that same Kabalistic tale, we have also reason that Alef begins the sequence of letters, and not Beit. Further, it is Alef that is first and one, again not Beit. With time, what I have elsewhere termed the Filipas sequence (though it was certainly presented before Mark Filipas did) is the one I personally see as most naturally reflecting the series... and in that aspect agree wholeheartedly with Fulgour. Such sequence as, as it seems with the Marseille as a whole, a deceptive simplicity masking its depth. Of course, I also heartily agree with kwaw and with Vincent when it comes to other letter allocations otherwise presented and incorporated within other decks (such as the WCS or C-H 'Thoth')... or indeed yet other correlations made in, for example, the Wirth or Lasenic. These specific decks indeed have depicted within their imagery a specific letter attribution, as I am increasingly confident that the Marseille has too. If that is the case, we have four principal groups of decks with regards to Hebrew letter-Atouts correlations: Marseille - Alef /Bateleur to Tav /Fou; Wirth, Lasenic & others - Alef /Bateleur to Tav /World as 22nd; WCS (& C-H ' Thoth ' with 4/17 inversal) - Alef /Fool as zero to Tav /World; no Hebrew letter correlations. Favouring a particular deck may therefore also have implications as to likely Hebrew letter correlations one works with - consciously or, perhaps, without awareness...

Fulgour	18 Dec 2004
Vincent wrote: In the same way the Thoth deck is set up to symbolise Crowley's slightly varying attributions. 0=Aleph changes everything, and in a none too subtle way: Saturn is then the attribution for The World and it will be ruled by The Devil from a now Capricorn-Saturn position. The Moon, exalted in Taurus, will suggestively thus provide a High Priestess (Moon) and Hierophant (Taurus) coupling. 1=Aleph produces: The Moon of The High Priestess exalted in The Lover's Taurus. The World's position transformed and raised to Shin-Fire-Soul. So, while it may seem like letter attribution is merely just for fun, as with all things, choices have consequences. Choice = Meaning.

kwaw	18 Dec 2004
jmd wrote: i]. If that is the case, we have four principal groups of decks with regards to Hebrew letter-Atouts correlations: Marseille - Alef /Bateleur to Tav /Fou; Wirth, Lasenic & others - Alef /Bateleur to Tav /World as 22nd; WCS (& C-H ' Thoth ' with 4/17 inversal) - Alef /Fool as zero to Tav /World; no Hebrew letter correlations. Favouring a particular deck may therefore also have implications as to likely Hebrew letter correlations one works with - consciously or, perhaps, without awareness... In the Marseille case, in which there is no proven intentionall correspondence with the letters in the design, I feel leaves one free either to ignore such, use your own or adopt that of another such as Filipos, GD, Wirth, Crowley, or whichever. This is one of the reasons I like the Marseille, as I like to use my own attributions. Kwaw

kwaw	18 Dec 2004
Fulgour wrote: It remains that there are 22 Tarot cards in the Major Arcana, and 22 Hebrew (Phoenician) letters. Without any great effort we can easily see exactly how they match. The Fool is TAV. The trouble is, without any great effort, it is possible to match a variety of sequences/attributions; ergo the Fool is [insert your prefered option here]. Kwaw

kwaw	18 Dec 2004
Fulgour wrote: 0=Aleph changes everything , and in a none too subtle way: 1=Aleph produces: The World's position transformed and raised to Shin-Fire-Soul. But in traditional hebrew letter symolism Aleph-Air is symbol of spirit and soul; Shin - fire is a symbol of judgement. It is also, using Filipo type methodology for what its worth, the initial letter of the word shofar, trumpet, used as a decoration on ancient jewish tombs as a symbol of the final judgement and of resurrection; for those who like to imagine the shape of the letters have been incorporated into the design of the Marseille we may also note that the three rising figures in the card 'Judgement' form the shape of the letter shin. Quote: So, while it may seem like letter attribution is merely just for fun, as with all things, choices have consequences. Choice = Meaning. True, your choice sees you prefer to apply the meaning 'soul' to the letter shin, presumably in reference to the 'world' as 'anima mundi' [symbolism that can be easily accommodated through the symbolism of saturn or the moon(saturn or moon being alternative attributes of the letter tav)]; mine the traditional symbolic equation of 'fire' with 'judgement'. Kwaw

The Majors Hebrew Letters Assignments? thread was originally posted on 13 Dec 2004 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.