The fool & Aleph follys doom is ruin

[anubis777]

Greetings,
I hope this post doesn't get moved but I thought I would attempt to find someone on here that is very well versed in the Hebrew letters on the trumps. I am talking about there break down, Aleph is the ox and lamed is the oxgoad & peh is the mouth. I am looking for someone with the back ground in the understanding of these letters. I can compensate the right person so please email me privately. Some in the Golden Dawn with this knowledge would be great.

 

[Zephyros]

What exactly is the question. And no compensation is needed, other than stimulating conversation. Freedom's free, yo

 

[anubis777]

Hi I have many questions on all of the 22 Hebrew letters I need answered. I am looking for the break down of all 22 Hebrew letters.

 

[Abrac]

Is it just a general question or does it relate to you personally as in a reading or something? Sorry to answer your question with a question, but if it's the latter, you're probably the best one to decipher it for yourself. If it's just about the letters in general that's another story.

 

[anubis777]

I am looking for a teacher who has this knowledge of the Hebrew letters connected to the 22 trumps. As an example Kaph is a cupped hand but also contains in the letter the peh which is the mouth so we have the cupped hand and mouth attributed to the wheel of fortune and the card of the tower so this gives a deeper meaning to the letter and card.

 

[Zephyros]

As to Aleph and Lamed, I had lots of trouble with it, and answered at least some of the questions in this thread

http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=196742

In her capacity as consort of the Fool, the Hadit that burns in the heart of every man, she [Adjustment] denies no one, and everyone and everything fulfills the cyclic coming to her and born of her as an endless array of Fools. This connects this card to Lust, as (I'm guessing) to understand the interplay between the Cause of the Fool and Effect of Adjustment is to annihilate the ego and all separation and (perhaps?) reach the City of Pyramids beyond the Abyss. I don't know if I would even call her the consort of the Fool, but a female Fool, all innocence in her all-encompassing end as he is in his omnipresent beginning.

As to the other part, I honestly think some things can't be taught, or shouldn't. During the course of my studies I look for ever possible (at least, possible for me) connections between the letters, their meanings, parallels on the Tree and their astrological significances. All the questions you're looking for are probably answered somewhere, either in Hermetic or Rabbinic literature, it's just a question of finding it. Also, at some point or another, all the Hebrew letters have been discussed either on this forum or in the Kabbalah forum. Just start studying and the connections will come.

Don't think it's all suffering, either. I've been studying exactly your questions for about two years now, and am only at the halfway point, at Mem. After I'm done, I'll start all over again.

 

[Abrac]

If you look carefully, Peh doesn't contain Kaph or vice versa. If you superimpose the two neither one completely absorbs the other; they only look somewhat similar. Even if you remove the "head" part from the top of Peh, its body is still drawn completely different from Kaph. The same is true of the final forms.

I'll just be blunt, I don't believe there's any real connection between the trumps and the Hebrew alphabet. There's a superficial one at best.

Firstly, there aren't 22 numbered trumps, there are 21 and a 0, or unnumbered card. This creates a huge dilemma as evidenced by the wide range of theories and correspondences put forward. On top of this, the Hebrew number values aren't 1-22, but 1-10, 20, 30, 40, etc. There isn't a 0 or unnumbered letter. The argument could be made that the correspondences have nothing to do with numbering, but "qualities." This approach actually makes more sense to me, but even then it would take quite a bit of forcing to match the Hebrew letter qualities to the original tarot trumps. This only seems a realistic possibility if you use relatively modern tarot trumps designed by occultists specifically for this purpose! The Hebrew alphabet is interesting in its own right, but studying it in connection to the tarot trumps only leads to a maze of confusion, imo.

Sorry if I seem pessimistic. My intention isn't to discourage your search, but to give you another perspective to consider. If you really must have a teacher, I'd suggest someone with a knowledge of Hebrew and Kabbalah, but not necessarily tarot; otherwise consult the Rabbinic literature as closrapexa suggests or works on Kabbalah that are divorced from tarot.

 

[Zephyros]

I'll just be blunt, I don't believe there's any real connection between the trumps and the Hebrew alphabet. There's a superficial one at best.

All the attributions in 777 are superficial and pasted on, but that makes no difference. They do, however, serve to expand how the symbol of a Tarot card could be connected to other symbols, among them the Hebrew letters, and to illustrate and demonstrate what would otherwise be abstractions. I find it far easier to ponder the meaning of Adjustment rather than "ox goad," even though the former is an idea while the latter is a real object. Still, that idea has more meaning to me than a farming tool.

The Hebrew alphabet is interesting in its own right, but studying it in connection to the tarot trumps only leads to a maze of confusion, imo.

I respect your opinion and am sure it is informed, but I still think the confusion stems from trying to force absolute correlations between two things I would be the first to admit have damning discrepancies. Still, as a Kabbalistic study tool, I feel Tarot is unmatched, especially for the Hermetic variety. I have not yet dug in the new Gra Tarot decks, but the fact that they exist at all shows that even traditionalists (relative term, of course) do see some worth in the connection.

 

[anubis777]

Let me share some insight about the shape of the letter Peh. It is the same shape of Kaph except it has the yod hanging from the top inside. So we can say if we are using the meaning of Kaph which is the fist or closed hand that the fist and the hand/yod of god the father is destroying what it not needed in our life. If we add the Heh which is window we can say that our vision of things and knowledge (window lets light in which is intelligence) is seeing & believing in things incorrectly that must be destroyed. Peh the mouth uses language which can also destroy.

 

[Richard]

Anubis777, I'm sure you know that the letters you are analyzing are of comparatively recent origin, not an earlier pictographic script. I read somewhere that if the story of Moses bringing the Tablets of the Law down from Mt. Sinai were literally true, the tablets surely would not have been written in the beautiful square letters with which we are familiar (although we may see the modern letters on the tablets in a certain Biblical movie).

For example, an earlier form of Aleph really looked sort of like the head of an ox, an oval with horns, similar to the glyph for Taurus. Peh did look very much like our modern Kaph (a backwards C). However, Kaph itself looked more like a backwards K.

I should think that if the actual formation of the letters is considered to have some sort of meaningful significance, perhaps it might be better to go back to the earliest known Hebrew script, if that is possible. Otherwise, we may be analyzing letters which, however beautiful, historically are not necessarily unique to the Hebrew language and certainly seem to have lost something of their earlier pictographic directness.

ETA. It may be objected that some Kabbalistic writings make a big deal out of the formation of the familiar Hebrew letters. For that I have no comment, because I don't really understand very well what is going on with the Kabbalistic interpretation of letter formation. Closrapexa?