Today is twelve days, which are one week and five days of the Omer. Hod of Gevurah: The Eight and Five of Wands.

Surrender in Discipline.

The Eight and Five of Wands make an interesting pair. The Five of Wands is one of the most crowded cards in the deck, with five people contending with each other. And the Eight of Wands is one of the few cards with no people in it at all.

In the Five of Wands, the Gevurah card, we see a group of people who all want their own way. Sometimes I see this card as a projected image of my own mind—filled with contradictory impulses all wanting to take control of my next action at any given moment. Anyone who has watched their mind in meditation will recognize this dynamic. But there’s another dynamic in meditation as well—because underneath these arguing impulses is a greater silence.

When you fight with the mind to try to train it, you only multiply and give strength to these impulses. When you surrender control and only observe, in time—sometimes quickly, sometimes after long practice—these impulses give way, these conflicting thoughts quiet down. And you experience a one-pointed concentration.

The Eight of Wands, the card that corresponds to Hod, which includes Surrender in its constellation of meanings, shows this one-pointed concentration.

When you first sit down to meditate this very action kicks up all the protests of the characters you see in the Five of Wands. But as you merely watch without engaging, the energy that was going into inner conflict now unites—just as you see the eight staves all headed in the same direction in the other card.

This 49-day ritual is another discipline. And it will kick up all kinds of inner stuff that your mind will use to distract you or get you to stop examining your mind and its reactions. All of a sudden, despite the fact that you may be home all day in COVID isolation, you’ll hear yourself saying “I’m just too busy to count the Omer today.” That’s just a thought though. It’s not reality. Let go of the thoughts and surrender to this practice. Watch what happens within. Because Hod is also about Humility and Surrendering the Ego, don’t identify with any of the thoughts. Just let them come and go like clouds across the expanse of the clear mind.

Another note with regard to Humility on this day, since Gevurah is also Judgment. I’m a judgmental kind of guy. And part of what I have to look at on this day is how I can bring an attitude of humility to my judging mind, so that I am not seeing myself as better than someone else. Like “oh, look at me, I’m a great meditator!” Hah.

Of course, some days are easier and some days are harder. Easy or hard though is a judgment. And that’s also something to let go of in this week of Gevurah and Judgment.

How is your surrender to this discipline going?

Today is eight days of the Omer, which are one week and one day of the Omer. Chesed of Gevurah: The Four and Five of Wands.

We have come to the week of Gevurah, and boy do I know it. Gevurah has lots of shadings to its constellation of meanings. It’s the place on the tree that splits off to the Sitra Achra, or as Obi Wan Kenobi might say, the Dark Side. It’s the Sephira of Strictness and Severity, Harshness, Constriction, Might and the letter of the Law. Oh, and then there’s the other name of Gevurah—Pachad, which means Fear. And then there’s also Din, which means Judgement. Sounds rough, huh?

Well I start with the things I don’t like because I’ve always had my issues with Gevurah. It took me a long time to understand the positive side of this energy—and those positives include Restraint, Structure, Strength, Boundaries, Courage, Organization, Justice and Discernment.

Then there are some qualities that can go either way depending on the situation and how you take it: Discipline, Limitation, Power and Control.

And then there is one quality that transcends it all: Awe.

So right now, with social distancing in place and having maintained this for the last 41 days, I’m feeling severely constricted. The boundaries I’m living within feel very harsh to me today. Nevertheless, I am keeping the discipline. However, that doesn’t mean I’m not reacting in ways that aren’t particularly healthy.

Good that we start the week with Chesed of Gevurah, because this energy needs to be balanced by the love and mercy of Chesed. We can think of Gevurah as holding back the overwhelming blast of love that is Chesed as a necessary check. And this is true in the other direction—Chesed is a necessary check on the unmitigated severity of Gevurah.

Last week we saw this very same combination of cards on the second day. On the eighth day however, these cards are in reverse order, and that makes all the difference. It’s a subtle difference in the shadings of energy, but it’s an important distinction—and that ability to be discerning in this way is in fact one of the good qualities of Gevurah.

Today is about the love that underlies the structure of our lives. The love that powers our strength and our ability to set good boundaries, and to take control with courage out of a sense of service.

In my book, Tarot and the Gates of Light: A Kabbalistic Path to Liberation, I used the example of the humble traffic light to show how as a society we set limits and create laws in the service of love—of protecting everyone.

When I look at the Four and Five of Wands, I see the open space of Love that Chesed provides as being the motivating energy for Gevurah. So that the figure on the left hand side in the image in the Five of Wands, the man who seems to be holding his staff out as a way of getting the attention of all the others is the one who is trying to bring loving structure to a situation of disorganization. Indeed, the Five of Wands is a card that shows one of the negative expressions of Gevurah in the lack of structure. But because today is Chesed of Gevurah we can see the figure holding out his staff as acting out of Chesed.

This is an example of the corrective and guiding nature of Gevurah as spoken of in Psalm 23. In fact, today, this verse feels like the mantra I need today:

גַם כִּי-אֵלֵךְ בְּגֵיא צַלְמָוֶת לֹא-אִירָא רָע כִּי-אַתָּה עִמָדִי, שִׁבְטְךָ וּמִשְׁעַנְתֶּךָ הֵמָה יְנַחֲמֻנִי

“Even though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for You are with me, Your rod and Your staff comfort me.

Seeing the man on the left in the Five of Wands I know I must call on my inner Moses to rally all my complaining inner Israelites, straining against the discipline of the journey. Indeed, metaphorically speaking, we’re on the trek through the desert. Imagine that long line of ancient Israelites—men, women, children, and the “mixed multitude” of people who went with them. Plus, animals, tents, and belongings. Without the discipline of Gevurah holding everyone together, people would have wandered off in all directions.  

I need to remember this, because today I am experiencing the structuring quality of Gevurah as stricture.

One question I have to look at today is how I can reconnect with the love that is the principle that give order, the benevolence that underlies the boundaries I must observe. Certainly, this practice is one way to reconnect and heal my relationship to Gevurah in my life.

And I will look for specific disciplines I can add to my day as an expression of self-love, love for others and for the Divine—disciplines I know that I will chafe at sometimes, but that I can remember the underlying motivation for.

What are your questions for today?

Today is seven days, which are one week of the Omer. Malchut of Chesed: the Ten and Four of Wands.

We have completed one week—six more to go. Are you feeling like you took on too much? You may be feeling unsure after 7 days whether you can last for the next 42—that this practice is weighing you down.

The images in the 10 and 4 of Wands can be considered in several ways.

This combination can be about taking on Responsibility (one of the characteristics of Malchut) in the service of Love. The question is, have I taken on too much Responsibility? As a single man living alone this is not an issue for me during the pandemic. I say this despite the fact that I am working a 9-5 job (that I am profoundly grateful for in this difficult time), that I’m working this path and writing daily, I’m taking classes and attending services via Zoom, and volunteering to call elderly people who live alone and are feeling more disconnected in this time of physical distancing. This means I am very busy—but I am not feeling overwhelmed or burdened by my responsibilities. I am sometimes overwhelmed by all the precautions I have to take—just doing laundry in my building’s basement was exhausting.

However, feeling overwhelmed by responsibility may be an issue for you if you’ve got a job you’re doing from home and have children at home. And I have also noted when the 10 of Wands shows up in a reading for someone in a helping profession—the medical profession, clergy, social workers—this can be a card that suggests someone who is taking too much responsibility and may be approaching burnout.

This combination can also suggest that one has so many creative projects that rather than experiencing them as joyful self-expression, they have become a burden.

In either case, this can lead to feelings of resentment or guilt at not being able to handle all these responsibilities/ideas.

That’s the time to stop and remember all these things we take on are in the service of love. To consider what it might be possible to put down. And to remember, that just as in the 10 of Wands, where the man’s destination is visible in the distance, this situation is not permanent. While we may not see the end yet, we know it will come.

Questions I find myself considering for today include: Do I experience love as a burden? Do I take on more than I can handle? Have I complained about the blessings in my life as a way of downplaying my good fortune when I speak to someone else out guilt?

What questions come up for you?

Today is three days of the Omer. Tiferet of Chesed: The Six and Four of Wands

Tiferet is the Sephira at the center of the Tree of Life, and it holds and balances the tension between the endless flow of love from Chesed and the boundary setting restraint of Gevurah. To open ourselves to Tiferet means being willing to open to the negative expression of Gevurah that lives within us—the harsh judgment and criticism, the desire for a strict adherence to law. Because Tiferet balances Chesed and Gevurah, this judgment and strictness is balanced by the love and mercy of Chesed. And since today is Tiferet of Chesed, the that balance is weighted towards love and mercy.

Still, for this love and mercy to be authentic—to be true, since one of the qualities and names for Tiferet is Truth, I want to emphasize that we have to be willing to be open to the painful negative Gevurah that lives within our hearts.

This mix of emotions is one reason that Tiferet corresponds on the human body to the heart. So that doing this work is like doing “open-hearted” surgery on ourselves.

Because this evening is the eve of the holiest day on the Christian calendar, Easter, I want to point out another correspondence of Tiferet. In Christian Cabala, Tiferet is the sacred heart of Jesus—because for Tiferet to hold the boundless love of Chesed for all creation, it also has to hold the pain of sacrifice, the severity of Gevurah.

So what does any of this have to do with the Six and Four of Wands? Let’s start with the hidden Christian symbolism in the Six of Wands. But first, what, you may ask, am I doing writing about Christianity and Easter in a very traditionally Jewish Kabbalistic practice. For one thing, I’m sure you realize, using tarot to count the Omer is hardly traditional. But I believe there is beauty and truth (by the way, besides truth, another key word for Tiferet is beauty) in every wisdom tradition. And when it connects to the heart of this practice, I’m more than willing to bring it in.

So, in the Six of Wands, the rider on the horse is wearing a wreath. But so is the top of the staff he carries. Then notice that the staff the rider is carrying is the only staff that crosses another staff, so the wreath on top of his staff is a crown on top of a cross—a reference to the Crucifixion. The willingness to bear the pain of the world to feel the love of the world. As the old song goes, “you can’t have one without the other.”

The other day when I wrote about the ritual of breaking the matzoh during the Passover, I noted that Rabbi Eliyahu deVidash, a 16th century kabbalist has to say on the of brokenness in his work Gates of Holiness:

“The Zohar teaches that the human heart is the Ark. And it is known that in the Ark were stored both the Tablets and the Broken Tablets. Similarly, a person’s heart must be full of Torah, and similarly, a person’s heart must be a broken heart, a beaten heart, so that it can serve as a home for the Shekhina [one of the guises of the Divine Feminine in Judaism]. For the Shekhina only dwells in broken vessels….”

It is only when we can hold our broken heart and offer it up, it is only when we can accept our own pain and emotional vulnerability that we can feel the deeper well of love that underlies it all, that boundless love that flows from Chesed.

Today I am certainly feeling my broken, hurting heart. So many people I know are critically ill with COVID-19. Their family can’t call them or see them. People are dying alone and are being sent for burial without even the ritual goodbye of a funeral.

I spoke with a friend of mine who works on the front lines in a hospital. He comes home every night and cries for all the pain he has witnessed. But the next morning he gets up and goes back to work trying to save people as best he can, even at the risk contracting the virus and of sacrificing his own life. This is the image of the hero on top of the horse to me. This is the tension of love and pain held in Tiferet.

And it leads me to consider the ways in which I am willing or unwilling to sacrifice myself for a greater cause. I have to examine if there is any way that I use my empathy in a defensive way—appearing to be compassionate while holding myself above those in need of help. And am I willing—or even able—to hold my own suffering with compassion?

These are some of the questions that come up for me in today’s Omer count. What are the questions and issues that arise for you?

Today is one day of the Omer: Chesed within Chesed — the Four of Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles.

Chesed within Chesed: The Four of Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles

לִמְנֹ֣ות יָ֭מֵינוּ כֵּ֣ן הֹודַ֑ע וְ֝נָבִ֗א לְבַ֣ב חָכְמָֽה׃

 “Teach us to count our days that that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
—Psalm 90:12

 Tonight I begin my annual Counting of the Omer, and the first time I’m counting online since the publication of Tarot and the Gates of Light. When I first started counting online using the tarot in 2006, there weren’t as many people following me on my blog, Another Queer Jewish Buddhist. So I have to admit, doing this on a public platform a little scary. This practice calls for rigorous self-examination—and I’m going to do some of that examination in public. But not all of it, since of course, some things are between me and the Divine.

This year, the pandemic gives a new kind of urgency to the count. Because we don’t know how long we have—after all, our days are numbered, whether we get COVID-19 or not—we have to learn to make every day count. And that’s part of the benefit of this practice. Of course, counting days is not new to anyone in a 12-step program, and as someone in recovery, I know that this practice has been an aid to my recovery.

The first card, on this the first day, is the Four of Wands, since it is a Chesed card, and today si Chesed of Chesed. The image looks forward to the final day on Pentecost, when mythically speaking, the Divine “marries” the people Israel, with the Torah as the wedding contract. The image on the card most resembles a chuppah, the wedding canopy for traditional Jewish marriage ceremonies. And it is also reminiscent of Abraham’s tent, which midrash tells us was open on all sides, the better to be able to greet guests. Abraham is the figure most associated with Chesed, which is love, flow, benevolence without limit.

At this time, when all of us are hunkered down at home, our doors closed to the outside world, one question I will reflect on is how has the pandemic affected my ability to stay open? Since this is the first day of freedom from Egypt, metaphorically speaking, in what ways am I still carrying my enslavement within?

I am aware when I am on the street of not feeling particularly open as I walk my dog, masked and gloved, and I’m passed by joggers huffing and puffing who aren’t wearing masks. My heart is certainly not open to them, and I find myself still enslaved to fear and anger. May I learn to respond with equanimity even as I keep my distance. I know I didn’t feel very open last week at a grocery store when other shoppers crowded close by. While it’s essential that I take care of myself, I have to remember that these other people are suffering through this as best they know how.

I mention in my book that the Four of Swords is a card of meditation, and just as the Four of Wands looks forward to the Divine marriage (of our inner Divine Feminine and Masculine) on Pentecost, the Four of Swords looks forward to the Night Vigil that takes place on the eve of Pentecost (known as Shavuot in the original Hebrew). The night before Pentecost, traditionally we stay away all night in study, just as the squire in the card image must remain awake all night in the chapel as part of his ritual initiation into knighthood.

At the start of this year when I gave myself my annual Tree of Life reading, the Four of Swords appeared in the Yesod position. Yesod is the Sephira of intimate connection and that includes sexual connection, among other things. The Four of Swords is a card of the spiritual retreat. I took this Sephirotic combination as a suggestion to pull back from searching for sexual connection on apps like Grindr as part of creating a deeper intimacy with myself and with the Divine. This decision may have saved my life, though there is no question that I long for touch, for the soul connection that can come with physical connection. I am sure many people who are single and living alone at this moment in history have similar longings.

However, staying inside during the pandemic is an opportunity to go inside, to search deep within to face my fears of loneliness and isolation.

Last I want to touch on the Four of Pentacles for a moment. Like all the cards, the image as a symbol can be read positively or negatively. So that one can see the man in the card as an expression of the flow of Chesed in the world, holding up the pentacles as a signal to others to stay connected to the Divine (his Crown at the Keter position—he is the only figure in the Minor Arcana that isn’t a court card to wear a crown) to stay connected to the heart (with a pentacle over the Tiferet position) and pentacles below his feet (connecting him to Netzach and Hot) so that he his spirituality will stay grounded in the world. But one can also see him as holding on to these objects tightly, as someone who is stopping the flow of Chesed because he is closed down. So some of the questions that come up for me this year are: Who do I look to for inspiration in Chesed? Who is an example of Nega-Chesed—someone who stops the flow for their own benefit, so they can hold on to the gold? And internally, how can I set a better example of Chesed for others? And where am I still holding on tightly, unable to let go into the flow of life, and of Chesed?

You may have notices I didn’t mention the suit of Cups. Well, I’m holding on a little tightly here! While each year is different and the content in my book is longer than what I am writing here, and goes deeper, I do hope to have an income from book sales. So I don’t want to “give it all away” even as Chesed is all about unconditional love. I do write about each of the Sephirot in great detail in the book so that you’ll be able to experience the full constellation of meanings suggested by each card. But here, while I am sharing this publicly, I am concentrating on the questions that come up for me personally this year.

So what are the questions that Chesed within Chesed bring up for you?

The Four of Swords: Staying Inside and Going Inside to Face Your Fears in the Days of COVID-19

I wanted to share some of the wisdom that the Four of Swords may have for you in these difficult days. In January I did a Tree of Life reading for the year ahead. And the Four of Swords showed up in the Yesod position.   

First, a little bit about the way I read the Tree of Life spread. I lay out the cards following the classic positions of the ten Sephirot on the diagram of the tree.

A diagram is flat—2 dimensional. But the thing to keep in mind about the Tree of Life is that it’s multi-dimensional and fractal. There are the four Kabbalistic worlds. And within each Sephira, this is a complete Tree of Life enfolded in a kind of implicate ordering of reality. In fact, in each Sephira in that implicate Tree there is another whole tree. This means each position has multiple layers of meaning. The first of these layers is revealed in the relationship of the Kabbalistic meaning of the card to the meaning of the Sephirotic position it lands on.

The Four of Swords, like the fours in all the suits, are cards the express one of the many meanings of Chesed, either positive or negative. So when a Chesed card shows up in a Yesod position, we’re considering how Chesed is expressed and mediated by Yesod. The Four of Swords in this position is an opportunity to explore the relationship of Chesed and Yesod.

Now Chesed is the unending flow of love from the Divine that sustains the world. It is a love so powerful it obliterates the personal ego. It is unconditional love that doesn’t discriminate—a veritable tsunami of Divine love that washes over and through everything in its path. This level of Chesed is not something that’s part of our everyday experience, though we do have everyday experiences of this Sephirotic energy. So looking at the Four of Swords, what does this kind of Chesed have to do with the image of a knight on a sepulcher?

Some people see the knight as a carving on a coffin, not as a living person. But this is not a card of death; it’s a card of initiation into starting the inward journey. This knight is very much alive, and at the start of a ritual. And if there’s anything the people of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn knew it was ritual—and in England this ritual was known as the Night Vigil.

It was the initiation into knighthood. The evening before the title of knight is bestowed on a squire, he prepared himself with a ritual bath of purification. He wore a white robe and entered the chapel with his sword and shield. In some places, the sword and shield are placed on a coffin. In some versions of the ritual, the knight-to-be would lay down in the open coffin, or rest atop it. He was not to fall asleep, but to spend the night in prayer and meditation.

The suit of Swords (and, in Hermetic Qabalah, the world of Yetzirah) corresponds to the intellectual and mental faculties—the ability to distinguish reality from illusion. The knight-to-be in the Four of Swords is not dead or sleeping. He is ever vigilant—Swords being the suit of the mind that makes distinctions. He is ready to face the awe and terror that an experience of Chesed can bring to the unstable ego. This is the test of the knight-to-be: not unlike the temptation of Christ in the desert or the temptation of Guatama Buddha by Mara, he must face his fears in order to undergo a spiritual transformation. Of course, when we look at this card, the first thought is that the fear is of death. And this is true, since the job of a knight, a warrior for Christ, is to face death: it’s just not the whole truth.

Remember that Chesed is both Boundless and “Boundary-less” and that to face this is to face the obliteration of the ego, a kind of death, which is a pretty terrifying prospect. The task of the knight-to-be is to face this fear and come away with an experience that is beyond duality—that he is both a separate being and an egoless expression of Divine Love.

The best expression of this idea that I know of comes from outside the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is in the words of Krishna to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. In this story, Arjuna hesitates before battle; he does not want to kill anyone (least of all his cousins with whom he is at war). But Krishna tells him that the Spirit that pervades the universe cannot kill or be killed:

“He who takes the Self to be the slayer, he who takes It to be the slain, neither of these knows. It does not slay, nor is It slain.
This is never born, nor does It die. It is not that not having been It again comes into being. This is unborn, eternal, changeless, ever-Itself. It is not killed when the body is killed.
He that knows This to be indestructible, changeless, without birth, and immutable, how is he, O son of Prithâ, to slay or cause another to slay?”

In both the Hindu tradition and the Zen tradition in Japan, this was the philosophy of the warrior’s path. Only once you have purified your mind with this understanding are you fit to enter battle. And as you can guess, the misappropriation of the warrior’s path has been used to justify a lot of bloodshed by every religion. Remember, the image on the card is of a medieval knight—a warrior for Christ. Many such knights were Crusaders, which means some of my Jewish ancestors likely died at their hands.

Just because the historical reality of knighthood isn’t very pretty doesn’t mean the ideal of knighthood is any less spiritual. The ideal knight was a protector of the poor and weak. He was a protector of the faith by embodying its values. For when one is attuned to the Flow of Chesed within, it naturally flows out in ways that lead one to help everyone. When Chesed is experienced within, when you can face your fears of such a force and let go of them, you become a vessel for this force in the world. It flows through you and gives you strength.

In this time when we are being asked to stay inside, despite all the fear, for those of us fortunate enough to have the security of a home, this is an opportunity to not only stay inside, but to go inside. We are being the terrible gift of the enforced retreat. And rather than struggle against it, we have an opportunity to watch our mind react with all its fear, we can watch the ego with all its rage to be in control. And we can let these emotions pass through us and let them go. We may have these feelings, but they will not have us.

When this card showed up in the Yesod position in my reading, it presented an interesting challenge. You see, Yesod is not about going on retreat like a monk. It’s all about connection, bonding, generativity, and this includes sexual connection with spiritual intention.

In its healthiest expression it is about a spiritual bond, between a teacher and student or between lovers, that takes both of them to a higher plane.

There is an urgency to connecting in Yesod—all the power of the Sephirot above flow through it to Malchut below. On the body, Yesod maps to the genitals—the phallus or the birth canal.

When Yesod is expressed negatively, it is the Sephira of addiction—someone who can’t hold all this energy, and who doesn’t have a practice or a container in which to express it in a healthy way may find themselves expressing it, to use the Buddhist description, unskillfully. Those unskillful expressions can include substance abuse, sex addiction and other compulsive behaviors like gambling for example.  

When the Four of Swords showed up in the Yesod position for me in January I found myself reflecting on the year that had just passed. My six-year relationship had ended, and I found myself avoiding feelings of hurt and anger by seeking out sexual connection. I was trying to avoid looking at my own responsibility for the problems in the relationship by satisfying physical urges that had gone unmet in that last year.

So when I saw the Four of Swords in Yesod, I realized it was time to stop this avoidance. It was time to stop seeking the empty comfort of the physical in order to go on an inner retreat. It was time to face my responsibilities and how I used the relationship as a way of avoiding deeper inner reflection. So in January I made the decision to stop dating and to step away from hook-up culture for at least a 3-month period. And I made the decision to be a little less social—to take more time for my inner connection.

And now, here I am in enforced isolation due to the pandemic. Looking at the message of this Sephirotic combination I see a call for me to make greater connection with others based in Chesed. And today, an expression of Chesed is a phone call to my elders. Checking on neighbors. Giving to charities that provide for those who are suffering the economic consequences of this plague. And I see the opportunity to step up my inner practice with daily meditation and contemplation so that my fears of a healthy, deep connection of Chesed in Yesod within and with another will be revealed for the illusions that they are.

While I did this reading for myself, it feels that this Sephirotic combiation has meaning for everyone in some way right now. We’re all being called to stay inside and go inside. We’re being called to recognize bonds and connections in deeper ways. I hope you can see in the Four of Swords the inspiration to go through the dark nights ahead with Chesed and courage.

In just two weeks the practice of Counting the Omer will begin. My book is about using tarot cards for this Kabbalistic practice that lasts for 49 days. I’ve done this practice for years. If you’re looking for a daily practice that can help stay strong through the trials ahead, a practice that can take you deep within to face your fears and experience a stronger connection with the Divine, consider Counting the Omer.

While you can do it anytime—and many of my readers have already started—traditionally the practice will start this year on the evening of April 9th. Get a copy of my book, Tarot and the Gates of Light and read the introduction the week before and join me and millions of others around the globe on this inner journey.

My wish is that it brings you deep peace, a heart of compassion, spiritual strength, and the blessing of experiencing the Divine light that always surrounds and supports us. So that no matter how many days we have ahead of us, we know how to make every day count.

On Social Distancing, the Social Contract and Netzach of Gevurah: A Kabbalistic Tarot Exploration of How We Respond in a Crisis—the Seven and Five of Wands

In my book, Tarot and the Gates of Light: A Kabbalistic Path to Liberation, readers are asked to work with different 2-card combinations over the course of a 49-day traditional Kabbalistic ritual called Counting the Omer. Each combination of cards provides spiritual exercise leading to greater insight, helps people see the thought patterns that keep them from feeling fully connected to the Divine. I want to look at one of those pairs and how it connects directly to what we’re facing right now: the Seven and Five of Wands, which appears on Day 11 of the count.  

When I wrote the book, oddly enough, I saw the man in the 7 of Wands as defending himself, not unlike the hero in Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People—this heroic doctor discovered that the mineral baths his town depended on for tourist income had become contaminated and was the source of disease. He was, in other words, a whistleblower for public and societal health. And because his information threatened people’s incomes, he was ostracized, his home vandalized, his family attacked. In this pair of cards that’s how I saw the man in the 7 of Wands: Now consider the man on the far left of the other card, the 5 of Wands, as this very same man, but here he is trying to get the attention of the others and bring them together even though they ignore him and continue in their pursuits and competitions that degrade the social structure.  

If you’re wondering how I got here, I interpret the cards from the filter of their corresponding Sephira on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. One of the many positive interpretations of Netzach includes Perseverance in the face of obstacles. Remember though, each Sephira has a negative side as well, and the image in the corresponding card may express that negative energy. The 5 of Wands is a Gevurah card, and one of the positive ways of looking at Gevurah is as structure, and organization. So that in looking at the 5 of Wands I see one of Gevurah’s negative expressions—social structure in disarray, where everyone wants to be the leader and acts only in self-centered concern.  In this view the social structure, the social contract is breaking down.  

And since I’ve noted that each Sephira has a positive and negative expression, alternately we can see the man in the 7 of Wands as not defending an unpopular opinion, but as someone who is simply out for himself—the destructive side of Ego, which is also one of the meanings of Netzach. And he’s not the only one. When we look at the 5 of Wands, we can see a group of people all out for themselves, in a social structure that is crumbling.

All you need to do to see this dark Sephirotic energy expressed in human action is to watch videos of the fist fights taking place in supermarkets all over the country as people rush to buy more toilet paper than they need or could possibly use.  

Gevurah can represent the Social Contract—the altruism of people coming together to help each other in organized groups where everyone is respected. And in its negative expression, Gevurah can reveal a social structure atomizing into individual selfishness.

Let’s face it, in crisis situations we all have our flight, fight, freeze or faint mechanism that takes over even when it’s not appropriate or even necessary. While I’ve never fought anyone over a roll of toilet paper, I felt the rage rise up in me when someone took the last package of something I wanted at Trader Joe’s. It’s one of the emotions to observe as it arises, without acting it out or reacting. When I’m in a crowded supermarket where everyone is on the edge of panic, the real infection to be afraid of is that panic, which clouds our better judgment and our humanity. And in crowds, spreads like contagion.

In the days ahead, we are all going to face trials. Consider the selfishness of someone like former Miss Nevada, Katie Williams, whose response to the CDC asking people to stop going out tweeted: “I just went to a crowded Red Robin and I’m 30. It was delicious, and I took my sweet time eating my meal. Because this is America. And I’ll do what I want.”

This is a pathological individualism that doesn’t recognize our interdependence. “This is America, and I’ll do what I want.” Social distancing and the social contract be damned. Even if it leads to the deaths of thousands or millions.

She represents the negative side of Netzach in Gevurah—a pig-headed stubbornness in service of selfishness.

So far, we’ve considered two sides of Netzach in Gevurah in this paring of the 7 and 5 of Wands: Standing up against society for what’s right in an attempt to save that society out of the recognition of interdependence. Or standing up for a selfish individualism that sees no social obligation. The practice of Counting the Omer then asks us to see ourselves in all these situations, questioning our moral character at its deepest from every angle. Who would I be in this situation? How would I respond? Is there something of the other side that lives within me? In my past, who have I been in situations like these? What can I learn about myself, for better or worse?

There is one more way I would like to look at this pairing. And if you thought this last example was dark, I’m sorry. As I wrote, part of the way I interpret the situations I see in the cards is by inhabiting every angle and every character in the card, visible or not. My storytelling teacher and dear friend, Laura Simms, taught when you learn to tell a story, you can’t identify with one character or have a favorite. Otherwise you’re not letting the audience have its own experience or decide for themselves. And so in the 7 of Wands, rather than looking at the man on the hill who is beset by six unseen attackers as either a brave soul standing up against the crowd for what’s right, and rather than seeing him as someone who’s selfishness makes him unable to see his connection and interdependence with others, we can ask ourselves about the people (presumable they’re people, we don’t see them) who he appears to be defending himself against. Who are they, why are they attacking him—and are we in that group?

I remember how, in the early 80s and through the 90s (and truth be told even today) there were people who responded to the AIDS crisis by saying, this is God’s punishment against homosexuals for their sin. Combine this with another history further in the past but that I always live in cognizance of—in times of social upheaval and crisis, people look for a scapegoat. During the bubonic plague years between 1348 and 1351, a wave of anti-Jewish violence followed the plague in its wake. Jews were accused of starting the plague by poisoning the wells. By the close of the plague years in 1351, there had been 350 incidents of anti-Jewish pogroms and 60 major and 150 minor Jewish communities had been exterminated across Europe. In the last century, on the other side of the world, in the wake of the fires that followed the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, native Japanese turned on their Korean neighbors—some newspapers reported the accusation (not based in any fact) that Koreans were poisoning wells. Sound familiar? We humans have a limited imagination. It’s estimated that 10,000 Koreans were killed in anti-Korean violence and riots in Tokyo.

So it’s also easy for me to see the man in the 7 of Wands as the victim of persecution. And in the 5 of Wands, how in a weakened social structure it’s easy for a leader to turn people in a society, each against the other. Consider the figure on the far left of the 5 of Wands this time, rather than holding his wand up, trying to get the others attention and bring back order—from this angle I see him as egging on a fight. Today, the pastor of an evangelical church took 45, Orange Caligula, or whatever you want to call the sad excuse for a human in the White House, this pastor took him to task for calling COVID-19 the Chinese virus, saying that it fuels racism and discrimination, hate and violence. Of course, for Scump, that’s a feature, not a bug.

One of the things I tell people in the introduction to my book is that when you work with a pair of cards, since our journeys are all different, you may see other situations and find other meaningful lessons for your own life. And for this pairing in the book, what I wrote today I wouldn’t have thought of in the last few years on Day 11 when this pairing appears. Because not only are each of us different, each year we’re different, and circumstances are different. It’s what makes using the cards to Count the Omer such a rich practice for me.

And because the practice asks us to consider every experience that comes up from every side, I must look at not only my fears of persecution, but I also must look at my inner persecutor. Yes, I have to consider my inner Orange Caligula, see if anywhere in my life or in my thoughts I identify with or have hidden desires to be a persecutor, and when in my life I have been a persecutor.

I never said this was an easy practice.

This year, when I get to Day 11 of Counting the Omer, with the 7 and 5 of Wands I’m going to have a whole new set of questions to ask myself about my own courage and my own selfishness. This year, the Counting of the Omer begins on the evening of April 9th, the second night of Passover begins the first day of the Omer. And I’ll be counting online with either videos or my own daily thoughts and meditations, my inner questioning and insight. I hope you’ll join me.

Minor Arcana Midrash: Parashat Beshalach, the Five of Wands and Gevurah

In this week’s Torah reading the Israelites find themselves facing the sea, with Pharaoh and his army at their backs. Despite witnessing the ten plagues/miracles that got them this far, the Israelites think they’re doomed. And they begin fighting among themselves, complaining, competing—kvetching. Discipline has yet to take hold. Discipline and Structure, qualities of Gevurah, are shown in their negative, shadow representations in the Five of Wands, which is one of the cards that corresponds to this Sephira.

I’m a child of the 60s, so when I first started studying Kabbalah, I had some issues with Gevurah. The constellation of concepts for Gevurah include Organization, Discipline, Structure, Judgement, Severity, Harshness, Constriction, Limitation, Awe and Fear. But the truth is, we need many of these qualities, and in this reading the Israelites need Structure and Discipline. And all people need Boundaries and Limits. We all need Discernment in Judgement. In fact, the parting of the sea in this parashat is an expression of Gevurah—creating a channel that enables the Israelites to pass. But let’s look at the card and see other ways it relates.

In the Five of Wands everyone has a wand—everyone wants to be the leader, so everyone is at cross-purposes, rebelling against the Discipline needed to reach the (metaphorical) Promised Land. When everyone wants to establish his own Structure, when everyone wants to lead, the result is chaos. Focus on the man on the left: he is not holding that wand in a gesture of attack. He looks as though he’s trying to get the attention of all the other people—he is standing in a position of leadership, yet those around him are too busy arguing among themselves to really see him or follow his direction. Their wands are all pointed in different directions. The image of the man on the left reminds me of so many paintings and filmic images of Moses standing at the edge of the sea, raising his rod to part the waters. And what was happening just before he parted those waters? The Hebrews were arguing and complaining, and not happy about his leadership:

“And they said to Moses, ‘Was it for want of graves in Egypt, that you have brought us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt?

Is not this the very thing we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us be, and we will serve the Egyptians, for it is better for us to serve the Egyptians, than to die in the wilderness?’”

Exodus 14:11-12

They’re barely out of Egypt and the people have forgotten the pain of their slavery. They’re fearful of the way forward and at cross-purposes, no longer united in moving towards a goal. I know these people, because whenever I make a decision to change in some way I hear the voices of my inner “stiff-necked” Israelites complaining and trying to change my direction.

Of course, I have an inner Moses (and in inner Pharaoh) too. And perhaps you recognize these voices from your own inner dialogue.  Because we all have our inner Israelites, complaining and looking to backslide almost every step of the way.

Pixar brought this metaphor to life in their film Inside Out, where five emotions are vying for control of a young girl’s personality.

Of course, this lack of Structure in the parashat is not internal. It’s a picture of a social group that’s not very Organized. Recently I experienced this lack of Organization and Structure recently in a contentious community meeting where the facilitator was unable to “herd the cats.” He couldn’t bring Organization to the meeting or create a Structure where everyone could feel safe. There were no clear Rules. And almost everyone ignored the time Boundaries. The result was a meeting with no resolution, with people stating their own position and not hearing anyone else. The image of the Five of Wands captures this situation.

The negative expression of Gevurah can be expressed either in lack of Organization or in Organization that is Constricting.

The image in the Five of Wands can also be seen as a positive expression of Gevurah—rather than chaos, we could be looking at choreography. The figures could very well be Morris Dancers. Or participating in a barn raising. It could be the vigorous discussion that is needed before coming to a consensus. But in relation to this week’s Torah reading, I see the Israelites (both inner and outer) suffering from a lack of discipline and acting out of fear.

May we all learn to integrate the positive aspects of Gevurah into our lives, so that we can be a strong channel for Chesed in the world.

Why is my book titled Tarot and the Gates of Light?

The short answer is because each tarot card is in fact a gate to Sephirotic energy that can lead you to experience the energy of Divine Flow. And by doing the daily meditations in the book you can strengthen your spiritual container to hold an ever greater flow of this energy.

The longer answer involves a bit of history, ranging from the Spanish Kabbalists of the 13th century, French occultists of the 18th century to members of the late 19th/early 20th century British occult group, the Society of the Golden Dawn.

The name is a reference to a seminal 13th century Kabbalistic work by Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla, a Spanish Kabbalist whose work influenced Moses de Leon, the author of The Zohar. That book was called Sha’are Orah (שערי אורה) The Gates of Light.

So how does this connect to tarot cards?

The first book that detailed the divinatory meaning of tarot cards was written by a French occultist named Etteilla in the 18th century. And it appears that many of the original meanings given to the Minor Arcana cards as described by Etteilla, match phrases describing the Sephirot in Gikatilla’s The Gates of Light.

The Gates of Light is divided into ten sections, one for each of the Sephirot—each is a “gate of light” through which one can access the Divine. While it was written in the 13th century, it was translated into Latin in the 16th century, well before the Zohar itself was translated. So that Christian occultists who wanted to study Kabbalah had access to this information. The image in the banner of this blog is from the frontispiece for this 1516 translation, called Portae Lucis (Gates of Light).

Ronald Decker, in his book The Esoteric Tarot: Ancient Sources Rediscovered in Hermeticism and Cabala, shows in side-by-side comparisons that the meanings of the Minor Arcana cards as recorded by Etteilla align systematically with explanations of the Sephirot as written in The Gates of Light.

How did this alignment come about? Decker surmised that someone may have used a deck to create “Kabbalistic flash cards,” writing the meanings of the Sephirot on the cards that correspond numerically.

While we don’t have hard evidence this, it’s clear from the comparisons in Decker’s book that whether Etteilla was aware of it, Gates of Light is where his interpretations had their origin. And Etteilla’s interpretations have influenced all subsequent writing about the cards.

Flash forward to the early 20th century.

In 1909 A.E. Waite oversaw the creation of a tarot deck that was art directed by Pamela Colman Smith. They were both members of the Society of the Golden Dawn, which studied Hermetic Qabbalah, and this knowledge was consciously baked into the structure of the deck and design of the cards.

Look at the Four of Wands from the Waite-Smith deck pictured below. One of the meanings Etteilla gives for this card is “covenant,” which comes directly from the chapter in Gates of Light on Chesed, the Sephira that corresponds to all numeric “four” cards. The image is of a chuppah—the wedding canopy under which couples marry in a Jewish ceremony, which is a “b’rit,” the Hebrew word for covenant.

There’s another hidden connection in this image of four staves. It can be seen as Abraham’s tent, which was open on all four sides so that he would be able to better see people in the distance and thus welcome them as guests.

In fact, it was after undergoing the “b’rit milah,” the covenant of circumcision, that Abraham was seated and recovering in the tent that was open on all sides that he saw four visitors in the distance. These were the angels who give him the news that his wife Sarah would bear him a son.

And by the way, each Sephira is identified with a patriarch. Chesed as it happens, is identified with Abraham.

Was Smith aware of this when she designed the card? We know she hadn’t advanced in her work with the Golden Dawn. And the Hermetic Qabbalah most likely wasn’t noting these correspondences anyway. Nevertheless, it’s all here if you’re looking closely.

Each Minor Arcana card is a representation of Sephirotic energy. And with the right knowledge, you can access that energy to experience greater Divine flow in your life.

And when you read Tarot and the Gates of Light, you will learn how to do just that. It’s available for pre-order right now on Amazon.

Major Arcana Midrash: The Tower

A lot of people don’t like The Tower when it shows up in a tarot reading. And certainly the image doesn’t look pleasant. But I’d like to look at some Kabbalistic concepts to rethink the meaning of the card and how to interpret it in different situations.

When people think of The Tower, the first Biblical reference that comes to mind is the Tower of Babel. And since this story is about arrogance and pride laid low—the people in this Bronze Age myth want to reach heaven physically and become gods themselves—there is what appears to be an obvious connection. But what happens to the people at the end of the story of Babel is confusion, and that’s where the story and the meaning of the card diverge. Humanity is confounded by a multiplicity of languages, creating more separation in the world But The Tower card is about revelation, even if it is delivered in a way that is unwelcome.

Kabbalistically speaking, one could look at The Tower as the destruction of a Kelipa. Kelipot (plural) are the metaphorical shells that surround fallen sparks of holiness, keeping them separate from the Divine. From the psychological Hasidic point of view, a Kelipa can be any ego structure or belief system that we build (consciously or unconsciously) that serves to distance us from experiencing God in every moment. Of course, God always has other plans. Thus, the lightning strike in the shape of the path down from Keter to Malchut.

This is in keeping with the idea of revelation, even if it is disruptive or destructive at first. These shells hide divine light, and the work of a Kabbalist is to find these hidden sparks and raise them up. This is first and foremost inner work. And in the destruction of the tower in the card, we see the release of these sparks in the flaming yods that surround the tower. Of course, the sudden destruction of an ego structure is hardly pleasant to say the least. But it leaves one open in a new way, more vulnerable. Thus the naked human in the following card, The Star.

Recently in my studies I came across an aggadic midrash from Genesis Rabbah, a rabbinic text written sometime between the 5th and 7th centuries CE. And I was struck by a phrase in the story that could be translated from the Aramaic in several different ways: דולקת בירה, “birah doleket,” has been translated variously as “a burning tower/fortress/palace” or “a palace aglow/filled with light.” And that is exactly at the heart of the issue in the Tower trump.

While the image in the card is indeed of a tower that’s burning, it was also filled with light—hidden light—that has been released from the hard shell of the tower. It is the light that is hidden in all Creation.

Below is a translation of the midrash from Genesis Rabbah 39:1, with the phrase shown in both ways:

“’And God said to Avram: Go forth from your land, etc.’…Rabbi Yitzchak said: This may be compared to a person who was traveling from one place to another, and saw a “birah doleket”- he saw certain palace aglow/burning tower. The person wondered: Is it possible that this palace lacks an owner? The owner of the palace looked out and said: I am the owner. In the same way, Abraham our father wondered: Is it possible that this world lacks a ruler? God looked out at him and said: ‘I am the ruler of the world.”’

Tarot from a first person POV: The Inner Journey Tarot by Angelo Nasios and Jon Carraher.

The meaning of the midrash changes radically depending on how you read those words. And I would suggest it also can also change your point of view of The Tower. Literally. Because most of us, when we see this card, we identify with one of the people in the card, falling from the tower, even though the scene in all the cards is from the outside as an observer. The Inner Journey Tarot, currently under development by Angelo Nasios and Jon Carraher, is designed to give the viewer of first person POV for each card, so when you look at the Tower card, you see it as though you are one of the people falling from the Tower. It’s a powerful and much scarier image.

But what if you were the person on the ground, seeing this happen? The image in the card is unambiguous. This is a tower on fire. But what if we shifted to think of it as a palace aglow? You might argue, but it IS a tower on fire!

Yes, and the burning bush was also on fire. And it was not consumed. It was alive with light. Moses had the consciousness to see creation as alive with light.

Commentators on this midrash on Abraham write about the two diverging translations. When it’s “on fire” Abraham is asking a question about God’s apparent absence in the world, allowing it to burn, metaphorically speaking. When the translation is “aglow” it’s a question about the source of the light that Abraham has the power to see. It’s why God chooses Abraham (please understand I write about this as story—I don’t believe in a God with a personality that chooses people)—he, like Moses, has the presence of mind to see the light under all Creation, even in places that may seem to be where one would be less likely to find light, in this case a structure that stands for power.

If you cultivate the ability to see that hidden light in all Creation, and within yourself, even in your darkest places, there is less likelihood you’ll need a Tower moment—it’s less likely you’ll need a revelation that feels like a destructive and terrifying blast to your ego. Because in doing the work of seeking the sparks of light, you will be slowly dismantling the structure yourself, stone by stone and brick by brick. Not unlike the Buddha, who said at the moment of enlightenment:

I, who have been seeking the builder of this house, failing to attain Enlightenment, which would enable me to find him, have wandered through innumerable births in samsara. To be born again and again is, indeed, dukkha!

Oh house-builder! You are seen, you shall build no house (for me) again. All your rafters are broken, your roof-tree is destroyed. My mind has reached the unconditioned (i.e., Nibbana); the end of craving has been attained.

The Tower: From the new Raziel Tarot by Rachel Pollack & Robert Place

At the start of this essay I mentioned the obvious connection to the Tower of Babel and then let it go. Rachel Pollack, when creating the Tower card for the new Raziel deck she created with Robert Place, notes that connection but chooses another image with richer and deeper associations. In the Raziel Tarot, the image for the Tower card is not the Tower of Babel, but the Temple in Jerusalem at its moment of destruction in 70 CE.

This feels right to me, because what happened with this destruction was the birth of rabbinic Judaism—and worship moved from Temple, with its priestly cult and animal sacrifice to the home and synagogue, with a more egalitarian (by 1st century CE standards) path. While the destruction of the Temple, and Jerusalem itself, was tragic, the result was a freeing of spiritual creativity and the renewal of Judaism, now free to take in influences from the wider world.

May we all learn to seek the light in ways that free us from our shells with gentle revelations of joy.