The Torah in the Tarot

A beautiful Tarot deck and booklet revealing the lost and forgotten Jewish origins of the Tarot.

For hundreds of years, the original meaning of the Tarot de Marseille, the artistic ancestor of the contemporary Tarot, has been a source of mystery, speculation, and debate. When Torah student Stav Appel encountered the Jean Noblet Tarot, one of the oldest known versions of the Tarot de Marseille, he found something curious: the Magician held his arms in the shape of the Hebrew letter aleph א, the Hermit wore a Jewish prayer shawl, and three pieces of matzah hid beneath the Moon. The meaning of these images became apparent when Appel learned that the deck was created during a centuries-long prohibition on Judaism in the Kingdom of France.

In The Torah in the Tarot, Appel carefully analyzes the Noblet Tarot, uncovering a rich array of Jewish symbols ingeniously concealed in its images. Given the deck's origin during the Inquisition's campaign to abolish Judaism, Appel argues persuasively that its secret content suggests it originally served as a tool for clandestine Jewish education. Writing in a rich style that draws on rabbinic literary forms, Appel has presented a landmark contribution to the field of Tarot studies—revealing that when we perceive the Tarot through a Jewish lens, we can, at long last, recognize the Torah hidden in the Tarot.

The Torah in the Tarot includes a booklet written by Appel, as well as a historically accurate color reproduction of the Jean Noblet Tarot deck—the only modern facsimile that preserves the full scope of the deck's original Judaica—created by the French artist Florent Giraud of Tarotgraphe.