The Torah in the Tarot

About this book

A beautiful Tarot deck and booklet revealing the lost and forgotten Jewish origins of the Tarot--featuring a foreword by poet Ariana Reines. For hundreds of years, the original meaning of the Tarot de Marseille, the artistic ancestor of the contemporary Tarot, has been a source of mystery, speculation, and debate. When Torah student Stav Appel encountered the Jean Noblet Tarot--one of the oldest preserved decks in the tradition of the Tarot de Marseille--he found something curious: the Magician held his arms in the shape of the Hebrew letter aleph א, the Hermit wore a Jewish prayer shawl, and three pieces of matzah hid beneath the Moon. In The Torah in the Tarot, Appel carefully analyzes the Noblet Tarot, uncovering a rich array of Jewish symbols ingeniously concealed in its images. Given the deck's origin circa 1650, during the Catholic Church's centuries-long campaign to eradicate Judaism, Appel argues persuasively that its secret content suggests it originally served as a tool for clandestine Jewish education. Writing in a rich style that draws on rabbinic literary forms, Appel has presented a landmark contribution to the field of Tarot studies--revealing that when we perceive the Tarot through a Jewish lens, we can, at long last, recognize the Torah hidden in the Tarot. The Torah in the Tarot includes a booklet written by Stav Appel with a foreword by Ariana Reines, as well as a historically accurate, 78-card color reproduction of the Jean Noblet Tarot--the only modern copy that preserves the full scope of the deck's original Judaica--created by the French artist Florent Giraud of Tarotgraphe.