Kabbalistic Tarot

When the Greeks invaded Israel and forbade study of the Torah, the Jewish people began a secret method of Toranic study that appeared to be merely a simple way to fill time: playing cards. These first tarot decks enabled the study of the Torah without detection. Once the Maccabees expelled the Greeks from Israel and the country once again became a Jewish kingdom, tarot cards dropped from sight.

Fifteen hundred years later, in response to Jewish disputations with Catholic theologians, political and religious persecutions, and ultimately the Inquisition, the cards resurfaced as a secret learning tool of the Torah.

In Kabbalistic Tarot, Dovid Krafchow details how the true meaning of the tarot is locked within the Kabbalah. He shows the correspondence between the 22 Major Arcana cards and the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and how the four suits correspond to the four kabbalistic worlds of Briah, Yitzerah, Asiyah, and Atzilut.

He describes the kabbalistic meanings of each of the 78 cards and their relations to the Torah, and provides insight into the Tree of Life spread through several kabbalistic readings. Dovid Krafchow has studied Kabbalah and practiced the Tarot for more than 30 years.

He began his study of the Torah at the Hadar Hatorah Institute for Rabbinical Studies in Brooklyn, New York, and lived for 10 years in Zefat, Israel, the city where the Kabbalah was received by the Ari Zal (Rabbi Isaac Luria) 500 years ago. He lives in Vancouver.