Michael Sternbach
The Aleph has a function as a consonant, known as a glottal stop. A glottal stop refers to the adduction of the vocal folds, closing off the flow of air. For instance, it's present before the word apple is said (you can feel the folds close before you begin to say the word).
This "non-sound" can indeed be seen as an analogy to The Fool, which is demarking a 'zero state' right before manifestation occurs, so to speak at its very threshold. I think the Thoth Fool expresses this nicely as he is surrounded by the spiral windings of 'negative existence' (Ain Soph Aur), while he is also being 'ejected' towards the observer.
A good analogy from modern physics are the virtual particles that keep popping out and back into the vacuum at a stupendous rate that renders them unobservable.
Now as has been said before, Beth is the first letter in Genesis, which starts with the word "Bereshith" or "in the beginning" - and this corresponds nicely with The Magus as the beginning of Creation and the series of the 21 numbered Major Arcana.
But there are also good reasons for seeing Aleph as analogous to The Magus - the posture of the Magus in traditional decks, but even in the Thoth (although reversed left to right here) being just one of them.
Neither view is wrong. It's just that different decks highlight different perspectives. Personally, I'm okay with regarding each deck as a universe of its own, with its own rules.
This "non-sound" can indeed be seen as an analogy to The Fool, which is demarking a 'zero state' right before manifestation occurs, so to speak at its very threshold. I think the Thoth Fool expresses this nicely as he is surrounded by the spiral windings of 'negative existence' (Ain Soph Aur), while he is also being 'ejected' towards the observer.
A good analogy from modern physics are the virtual particles that keep popping out and back into the vacuum at a stupendous rate that renders them unobservable.
Now as has been said before, Beth is the first letter in Genesis, which starts with the word "Bereshith" or "in the beginning" - and this corresponds nicely with The Magus as the beginning of Creation and the series of the 21 numbered Major Arcana.
But there are also good reasons for seeing Aleph as analogous to The Magus - the posture of the Magus in traditional decks, but even in the Thoth (although reversed left to right here) being just one of them.
Neither view is wrong. It's just that different decks highlight different perspectives. Personally, I'm okay with regarding each deck as a universe of its own, with its own rules.