Tarot Meanings and the Book of Ekkhah

[PageOfCups]

In the Tanakh (Bible) the book Ekkhah (Lamentations) is written using an acrostic form of poetry. Using the Hebrew alphabet (containg 22 letters) the writers of this book produced 22 verses for the 1, 2, and 4 chapters of this book with the 3rd book containing 66 verses.
Being familiar with Etz Hayim (Kabbalistic The Tree of Life) I see some synchronicity sorting ace -10 as verses 1-10 upright and 11-20 and reversed. Being that I read court cards somewhat uniquely I interpret those with all the same verse regardless of rank. 21 being upright and 22 vice verse. Using the 3rd book I sorted the verses in order assigning not just an upright and reversed meaning but an additional third verse because this chapter contains not 22 but 66 verses and there are 22 major arcana. To make this way more digestible I will include a link to a spread sheet where I have done all the work of sorting the verses. The translation is OJB which I prefer however the verse chapter and number will be the same for ANY translation.

Link to spreadsheet of verses:

Hope that this is helpful!

[Diana]

In the Tanakh (Bible) the book Ekkhah (Lamentations) is written using an acrostic form of poetry.

Gosh, I didn't know that. I won't help for my tarot practice as I don't use any kabbalistic system, but it's a great addition to my study of scriptures.

[Nemia]

You can see the original Hebrew and English of the Book of Eichah together here:

https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/16457

But I don't see how you can connect that to the Tree of Life. Neither from a numbers point of view nor from a content point of view.

[PageOfCups]

I didn't compile this resource as a "complete" source of the cards meaning, I just thought it would be an interesting study. Lining up the aspects of the Sephirot in order 1 Keter - "Crown" 2 Chokhmah - "Wisdom" 3 Binah - "Understanding" 4 Chesed - "Kindness" 5 Gevurah - "Discipline" 6 Tiferet - "Beauty" 7 Netzach - "Eternity" 8 Hod - "Splendour" 9 Yesod - "Foundation" 10 Malkuth - "Kingship" I found some similarities between this order of qualities and some narrative content in this book.

[Nemia]

I'm sorry but I see no connection at all.

The kabbalists of the Tree of Life used the whole Hebrew alphabet for the paths between the sephiroth. The sephiroth have names, the paths have letters that we use in Hebrew every day for counting, but they are used differently.

From one to ten, there is no difference - it's aleph to yod.

But in proper Hebrew counting, after yod, you combine letters. Yod is ten, gimel is three, so yod-gimel יג is thirteen. Just like in Roman numbers, you combine letters to get higher numbers.

The kabbalists who gave letters to the paths didn't use that system but simply went through the whole alphabet from aleph to tav.

The Tanach uses the normal Hebrew letters counting, with letter combination to get to the higher numbers.

It's simply a different system. In my opinion, it doesn't fit. If it inspires you, that's great, but as Hebrew speaker, I don't see a connection. The acrostich technique is interesting and it must have forced the poet to find new ways of expressing the same pain, but for me, that's a literary device, not a mystical one.

PS: Many of the famous non-Jewish kabbalists didn't know Hebrew. No Hebrew speaker would have assigned numbers to the trumps that are different from the Hebrew numbers.That's completely counter-intuitive. We say everyday aleph as one, so why should all of a sudden aleph be zero? and and bet one???? I really struggled with this "English school" of counting.

I just looked up the translation you used - that's a Messianic translation filled with hassidic expressoins. So you probably know Hebrew, because otherwise, you can't understand it. Lev, yamei kedem, lehem, nefesh etc are not translated.

[PageOfCups]

I understand the numerical uses and inter-workings of the Hebrew language and alphabet. I think my post was a little unclear and confused you but I have updated some of my wording to make it straight forward. As a practical kabbalist one way I view the sephirot is a journey, once from Keter to Malkuth and then back again. I recognize this is not the most common way to marry the systems of kabbalah and tarot so feel free to challenge any of this.

[Nemia]

So you see them as travel down the tree and up again? No no, I don't want to challenge, only understand. I'll read them in sequence again to see how that works.

I think we all work with the Tree as a journey. We try to climb up and to understand how divine spirit flows down.

If we connect tarot to it, where do you see the minors? Courts? I'm curious to find out your system I go with Thoth, it works for me.

[PageOfCups]

Well said! Thats where this system is lacking. If I take the first book for example and give verses 1-10 to ace-10 upright, and verses 11-20 to ace-10 reversed, then I only have two cards left. To makeup for this I associate all courts of one suit to have the same verse. That would mean that the 21st verse would be upright all court cards, and the 22nd would be reversed. The sephirot come into my head when I think about the "journey" from ace-10 starting with Keter at the Ace and so on. Hopefully that clarifies some of what I am sharing. This is a very messy system, I actually was inspired by a dream/vision to look into this mini-project.

[Nemia]

Ah, okay - but where are the courts on your Tree? (I go with Thoth: Knights on קתר, Queens on בינה, Knights on תפארת and Princesses on מלות - works for me)

(Although I still look for a system where the grammatical gender of the names of the sephiroth plays a role. Kether, chessed, netzach, hod, yesod: masculine. Chochma, bina, gvura, tif'eret, malkut: feminine.

While the planetary associatons work because you go up the Chaldean sequence, I dislike have Venus on masculine Netzach and Mars on feminine Gvura. And Saturn on Bina! I always dreamed of shaking it all up differently.)

that must have been a special dream!!!

[PageOfCups]

The courts were not my first priority when considering the Lamentations however in a general sense kabbalah I would have to agree with your associations. I also observe the congruent femme and masc associations.

[Nemia]

We have to do something about that!!!


ETA: In my personal kabbalah work, I have added Saturn's moon Rhea to the association with Bina, because I feel that the dark feminine association of Bina doesn't sit too smoothly with Saturn (although of course, counting planets from Earth upwards, we land with Saturn on Bina). But Rhea is not only one of the moons of Saturn, she was also his sister, his wife, and bore him the children he swallowed. She was the dark mother who allowed him to swallow Hera, Demeter, Hades, Poseidon etc, until she served him a stone wrapped in nappies instead of Zeus - who grew up to free his siblings, fight against his father's generation and establish the rule of the Olympian gods.

Rhea is a dark figure, she's either disloyal to her children or her husband.

Once I turned Bina into the sephirah of Rhea, and put Saturn on "second place" (Rhea moon of Saturn), it worked much better for me.

From an astrological point of view, Netzach, Yesod and Malkuth are feminine, i.e., associated with celestian bodies identified as "females": Venus, Moon, and Earth. Now I added Bina with Rhea for myself

Sorry, didn't want to de-reail your thread!!!

[TheLoracular]

I don't normally bring back threads this old on purpose but I was taking some notes and some things came up it felt worth sharing here directly.

Lamentations does feel like a mystically inspired text to me after reading the English (and admiring the Hebrew like a toddler staring at his parent's newspaper) on the site Nemia linked. For one thing, if the prophet Jeremiah did in fact pen it as a prediction to Jerusalem's fall and he was describing things precognitively (and the scholarship hasn't presented itself from what I could see that actually dates it after vs. before) then it WAS received knowledge.. and Jeremiah is one of those biblical figures I keep an open mind about.

But I don't see a correlation or a parallel pattern to the 32 Paths of Wisdom to that first chapter of Lamentations other than there are 22 lines numbered 1-22 in Alef-Bet.

However, there is a Kabbalistic commentary about it out there. Sepher Kol Bochim? And I ~think~ this is a modern translation?

So that book might very well have material that links to other Kabbalistic concepts that could make for connections to specific letters appear. I thought fluent in Hebrew might want to look

[newoldians]

The Fool was always for the person being read in the other Kabbalah meaning books I have read.