The store is called Fairies Forest. It takes up two store fronts and is bursting with goodies that would, in other countries, fill four or five New Age stores. They mostly carry Lo Scarabeo decks from Italy and a few Russian decks, but I enjoy seeing what decks they have as well as browsing through fairy tchotchkes, Hebrew oracle decks, fantasy movie paraphernalia, Tolkien books (in English!), and other New Agey gifts.
Today I saw the kind of deck I've wanted for years and, in fact, started to create: a Jewish tarot deck. It's the Tarot Yehudi by Betzalel Arieli. I was fascinated and even had the clerk take one box out of the locked cabinet. I struggled to make up my mind because tarot decks here cost more than twice what they do in the U.S. I began to walk out of the store without buying it, but then asked myself how often I get to Tel Aviv...
This morning, I explored my new deck while lounging next to the Gulf at 9Beach. Here are some of images of my unboxing:
Deck quality: The deck is thicker than I'm used to and the cards are glossy enough to slide in every direction when I remove them from the box. It looks as if the cellophane covering each card may wear off quickly, damaging the cards, if the deck is shuffled much. The figures in the cards are predominantly male; I count 21 women and two babies of indeterminate gender in the deck. (The quintessential Jewish image of a woman lighting Shabbos candles is missing from the deck; in fact, only one card, the Four of Candles, shows Shabbat candles.) However, the card images and the organization of the deck are fascinating!
The Aces show human hands holding ritual objects related to the Havdalah ritual, rather than the hand of God offering gifts to us. The Aces in Arieli's tarot show humans becoming the primary partner in creation. "As below, so above."
The Princesses (represented by the prophets Miriam, Huldah, Avigail, and Devorah) correspond with the four elements. These are the Pages of the RWS, figures that are typically shown accepting the Divine gift represented by the Ace of their suit.
The remaining Court cards are aligned with regions of the zodiac. Fire signs (Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius) are the King, Queen, and Prince of Candles. Earth signs are represented by Coins, air signs by Swords, and water signs by Cups.
The numbered cards of the Minor Arcana are not clones of the Rider Waite Smith deck, in fact, they stray pretty far from it. Following are the Three of Wands, Six of Cups, Six of Swords, and Nine of Pentacles:
Printed on each numbered Minor Arcana is a month of the Hebrew year, a region of the zodiac, and a sfirah on the Tree of Life-- all the twos are Ḥokmah (חָכְמָה), all the threes are Binah (בִּינָה), and so forth down to ten and Malkhut.
The Two, Three, and Four of Candles are aligned with the zodiac sign Aries and the month of Nisan (נִיסָן), in which Jews observe the Shabbat HaChodesh, Shabbat HaGadol, Ta'anit Bechorot, Passover, and the beginning of the Counting of the Omer.
Nisan falls in the half of the year called "The Days of Sun." Nisan and the other two months of spring are represented by three Wands, three Coins, and three Swords.
The Majors are aligned, unusually, with Sfirot on the Tree of Life.
The Fool card, called Divine Breath, and is number 1, so it and cards
10 (The Prophet) and 19 (The Moon) are aligned with Keter, Crown.
Since The High Priestess card, called HaShekhinah, is aligned with Binah, the third sfirah on the Tree of Life, she is given the third letter of the alphabet, gimmel, rather than the letter beit, which I usually associate her with.
The Magician card, called The Sage, seems to reflect Christian ceremonial magic-- I don't know how much the symbols reflect actual Jewish mysticism.
None of the Majors, only the number 10 cards of the Minor suits, are aligned with Malkhut, Kingdom.
Fairies Forest had decks for sale in both Hebrew and Russian. Images on the website seem to indicate that an English language version has also been published (with quirky transliterations of the sfirot).
YouTube video of the Major ArcanaThe video says that there are references to the planets in the cards, presumably the Majors, but I haven't found them yet.
Multilingual website (just click on the Union Jack for English)
You can view the cards with Hebrew, Russian, or English titles and descriptions. The English description of the cards on the website doesn't seem to contain exactly the same information as the LWB.
The LWB is in Hebrew (without vowels), so I'm relying on Google Translate. This has yielded several good laughs-- for example, this supposed quote from Megillat Esther: "And take Asparagus to the king on the eve of his kingdom on the tenth month, the new moon, at seven."
Of course, I'll turn to the website and the LWB, but I think the fun part of learning this deck will be creating my own meanings for the cards from my Jewish knowledge and memories and from the Sefer Yetzirah and other Jewish sources.
(I've used the image of the Two of Swords here because that card leaped out of the deck when I first unboxed it.)
Following are images of a few of the Major Arcana cards. The Empress is represented by Queen Esther, The Hierophant by Aharon (Aaron), Strength by Shimshon (Samson), and The Star by Batsheva (Bathsheba).
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