The First Reading with the Eilat Tarot

I spent much of this morning revising the “Structure of the Deck” section of the Little White Book for the Eilat Tarot. I had the quiet satisfaction of feeling that it may finally be complete.

There is still more work ahead. I’m waiting for Amashé to finish the graphic design work that will refine the cards and prepare them for professional printing.

But I was tired of waiting.

So I printed the current draft of the cards at home and trimmed them by hand.

They are a real deck now.

After so long existing only on my computer screen and in my imagination, it felt so right to finally hold them in my hands.

I shuffled the deck and drew three cards using the Three Dimensions Spread from the LWB, a spread that draws one card from each arcana of the Eilat Tarot:

World Card - What deeper structure or force is shaping this situation?
Time Card - What is unfolding through time?
Soul Card - How am I being asked to meet this moment?

World Card:
Mem - The Hanged Man
Concealment
The Path Between Reverence and Persistence
Hidden depth. What obscures.

In the Sefer Yetzirah, the letter Mem is associated with water and concealment. As a World Card, it points toward hidden formation: immersion, gestation, inwardness, and what has not yet fully emerged into view.

The card suggests that something essential in this project still remains beneath the surface. The deck exists physically now, but its deeper meaning is still unfolding.

The path associated with Mem in the Eilat Tarot runs between Reverence (Hod) and Persistence (Netzaḥ). For more than a year, I have persisted through an enormous creative labor. Yet this card suggests that persistence alone is not enough. The deck now asks for reverence: pause, contemplation, and the willingness to let the work deepen rather than forcing completion.

Some things ripen in concealment. Perhaps the Eilat Tarot is one of them.

Time Card:
Five of Cups - The Mourner’s Path
Restraint (Gevurah גְּבוּרָה)
Grief acknowledged. Mourning that must be lived through before hope can be seen.

This felt like a strangely vulnerable card to appear in the first reading with the deck.

It seemed to acknowledge not only the labor behind the project, but also the losses behind it: aliyah struggles, the surgeries, disappointments, yeridah, loneliness, and spiritual searching.

The title The Mourner’s Path suddenly felt earned.

And yet this card is not despair. In the Eilat Tarot, the Five of Cups is associated with Gevurah: restraint, endurance, and the strength required to live honestly with grief without allowing it to become the whole story.

This card is also associated with the month of Ḥeshvan and with Yom HaAliyah. That pairing moved me unexpectedly. Crossings are never clean. Arrival always carries loss within it. And I suspect this deck could never have become real if I had not eventually returned to the United States.

Soul Card:
Mother of Cups - Keeper of the Veiled Cup
Formation (Yeẓirah יְצִירָה)
Sustaining compassion. Remaining present without excess.
(Water of Water - Neshamah, the soul of inward discernment)

This card answers the question of how I am being asked to meet this moment.

Gently. Inwardly. Without forcing revelation.

The Keeper of the Veiled Cup echoes Mem in striking ways: hidden waters, inward discernment, sacred concealment, and emotional depth held with care rather than exposed too quickly.

Because this particular Mother card corresponds to Neshamah, the soul of inward discernment, it feels less emotional than contemplative. It suggests quiet wisdom, compassionate restraint, and trust in what cannot yet fully be articulated.

This card seems to ask me to hold the project tenderly.

Conclusion:
Together, these three cards form a coherent reflection of this moment. All three are marked by hidden water, veiling, inwardness, grief honestly inhabited, and patient becoming.

This does not portray a triumphant ending.

It seems more like the sacred pause after birth but before naming.

I now hold the Eilat Tarot in my hands. But whatever this deck is becoming still seems to be unfolding quietly beneath the surface.