There are lots of decks out there that are advertised as kabbalah decks. I collect decks that make such claims if I think they’re created with a respectful approach to the original Jewish tradition. One of my issues with the Western Hermetic tradition is that it basically strips out Judaism from Kabbalah (hence the spelling Qabbalah). And the first deck I want to share from my collection is perhaps the deck that is firmly rooted in the Judaic tradition, the Kabbalah Cards(TM) created by Ron Feldman, who is also the author of the well-respected book, Fundamentals of Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah.

Like the standard tarot decks of today, this deck has 78 cards.

One card for each of the Hebrew letters, for a total of 22, corresponding to the Major Arcana.

One card for each of the Sephirot, across the four worlds, for a total of 40, corresponding to the numeric cards of the Minor Arcana

One card for each of the worlds, across the four worlds as represented by the letters of the Tetragrammaton, for a total of 16, corresponding to the court cards.

As you can see from looking at the Aleph card, the path shown is the path between Chesed and Gevurah, which is as it is assigned in classical Jewish Kabbalah. In the “Waite” wing of the Western Hermetic tradition, the Aleph corresponds to the Fool card, and the path is between Keter and Chokhmah.

You will also note that the card noted as Yesod in Briyah is numeric 9, corresponding to Yesod. And in the Waite system, this card would be the 9 of Cups, because in in the Western Hermetic Tradition, the world of Briyah is the world of emotion. However, the Hermeticists reversed the meanings of the worlds. In the Jewish tradition, Briyah is the world of Intellect. So that if you wanted tarot card images to correspond to the classic meaning, intellect, the suit would be swords, not cups.

As someone who is trying to work from the Jewish tradition, using a Waite-Smith deck, as you can see, these changes by the Hermeticists create difficulties. There really isn’t a 1-1 correspondence between these systems. Where I can, I give precedence to the original Jewish tradition, but since I work with the Waite-Smith deck that isn’t always possible.

I use this deck for study and meditation.

I’m sad to say it is out of print. a few years ago Feldman said he was interested in producing another edition, but I haven’t seen one out yet. If you’re interested in serious study, and if you can find one somewhere, this is a good deck to start with, though of course, like the Tree of Life and the Sephirotic system, it’s pretty abstract for those not rooted in the tradition.

Future posts will cover other Kabbalistic or Kabbalistically influenced decks, as well as decks that aren’t necessarily Kabbalistic, but use Judaic imagery as the primary symbolic language in the cards.