Tarot and the Tree of Life

by Isabel Radow Kliegman

  In assigning the pip cards to the sefirot of the Tree of Life, we introduce a further suggestion that facilitates both understanding and remembering the cards. The implication is that similarly numbered cards of each suit have something in common. And, indeed, what they share is their association with one of the ten sefirot and the distinctive character of that sefirah. If we have understood what the energy of Chesed is, for example, in assigning the fours of each suit to that sefirah, we can say, “Look at the image of the Four of Cups. How does what I know about Chesed color my perception of that card? Can I detect the quality of that vessel in the Four of Wands? How does it help me to understand the Four of Swords? How does the nature of Chesed challenge my initial impression of the Four of Pentacles?”

  The appropriateness of the match between sefirah and Minor Arcanum is more powerful in some cases than in others, or at least more obvious. The coincidence of sefirot and pips challenges us to seek meaning and connection, to grasp why the image of the Four of Cups and that of the Four of Wands belong to Chesed, to find what, in essence, they share. Even at its most arcane, the connection between the sefirah and the cards that belong to it by virtue of their numbers is worth pursuing and exploring.

  The sixteen court cards also break into four clear groups: kings, queens, knights, and pages. Once again, we are confronted with a numerical correspondence in the Tree of Life, this time with the four olams or worlds. Understanding the nature of each world will inform our understanding of each set of court cards. Again, seeing what the pages of each suit have in common, how they are manifestations of the olam that they all share, enables us to remember them more easily.

  The process is reciprocal. The nebulous flavor of the sefirah or olam is rendered intelligible when we see, in the image of a Minor Arcanum, a palpable expression of it. Conversely, we find deeper meaning in the cards as we come to understand how they are characterized by the sefirot and olams of the Tree of Life to which they are assigned. (That there should be twenty-two Major Arcana in the Tarot and twenty-two paths connecting the sefirot of the Tree of Life is the final mysterious connection between the two symbologies. The discussion of that subject, however, is beyond the scope of this work and is reserved for another time.)

  CHAPTER 3

  Pentacles: The Soul of Bread

  THE SUIT OF Pentacles, as the alert reader may recall from my introduction, is my favorite suit of the Tarot. Like the sefirah of Malchut, the lowermost sefirah on the Tree of Life, it has to do with things incarnate and material: health, money, career, sensuality, work, home, cars, maintenance, clothes—anything observable by other people as opposed to anything that is going on within ourselves.

  Ideally, we would not have a favorite suit. If we could, we would relate to every card of the deck with equal energy because they are all equally important. All of the suits have value. However, anybody who tells you that they relate to every card with equal energy probably lies about other things, too. We are on this earth to work through our imbalances. That’s what we are doing on this earth plane. If we already had it totally together and totally integrated and totally in balance, what would we be doing here? We would be on the plane of angels. We are here because humans alone, of all God’s creations, can improve, and we are here to improve. One of the ways in which we make improvements is by learning the most appropriate, the best responses to whatever the universe offers us. And the way in which we achieve that point of development is by getting ourselves in balance.

  The pentacle, you will recall, is made up of two parts: the pentagram, which is a five-pointed star, and the coin that surrounds the pentagram. For those of us who can picture the Leonardo cartoon of a man circumscribed in a circle, we can see how easily the pentagram represents that figure. We see here the body and the soul. The soul is star stuff. That is what we are. That is what we are made of. And the coin is the body that houses it.

  The challenge of Pentacles is the challenge of always remembering that, whatever the body, there’s a star inside. There’s a soul inside. Whether it’s a bird or a flower or a rock, there’s divine energy within. The challenge is not to get caught up in the externals of things. This is very much the message of The Little Prince by Saint-Exupery: always see with eyes of the heart.

  If we recollect a cardinal lesson of Kabbalah, that creation is the result of divine emanation into the ten sefirot, or vessels, of the Tree of Life, we can see the pentacle in a new light. The coins—our outward forms—may be different, but the star stuff is the same within each of us. As Ram Dass says, “Only the packaging is different. You look into the eyes of another being—you see another being looking out at you. ‘Wow! How’d you get in that one?”’ I particularly like Ram Dass’s choice of the word being rather than person. It reminds me of what may be my favorite line from any movie. Rocky, in the first film of the saga, turns to his wife and says of his dog something like, “You know, sometimes when I look at him, he doesn’t look like a dog to me.” Many of us who have deeply loved animals have had that experience—seeing in their eyes the divine spark, feeling the shared creaturehood, rather than fixating on the body and seeing the difference of species. Seeing, in fact, the One manifesting as many.

  We have suggested that for balance we need all four functions of consciousness, all four suits of the Minor Arcana. Each involves a way to spirit and an obstacle to spiritual growth. What, then, is the way of Pentacles? It is twofold. One is the way of gratitude and appreciation.

  At some time in a college dormitory, at the age of nineteen, many of us had heated discussions until four in the morning regarding whether a tree falling in the forest makes a sound if there is no ear to hear it. What is much more interesting to me now is whether a tree blooming in the city was created in vain if people pass by but don’t notice it. If there is the sound of a bird, if there is anything wonderful in the world—a sunset, a pebble, an animal ranging through the grasslands, whatever it is that turns you on—if we are there, but do not relate to it in any way, is that wonder of natural beauty created in vain? And does it bring God sorrow?

  Blessings are being showered upon us uninterruptedly. The Suit of Pentacles is the suit through which we can appreciate what we have been given. It is easy to get used to blessings and to take them for granted, and it is easy to fixate on things that are wrong. (I speak from experience.) It’s so easy to pick, pick, pick at the things that aren’t right and accept without acknowledgment the most important things. Anyone reading this book can count on waking up in the morning, opening their eyes and seeing—that’s a blessing. Anyone turning these pages doesn’t need someone to dress them because they’re paralyzed. Yet how many of us awaken to the day exclaiming, “Not one nerve in my entire body hurts!” How often do we rejoice at the miracle of our daily lives? Only the first day after a three-week bout with the flu do we experience the wonder of feeling normal. Otherwise, we think perfection is normal.

  We’re not entitled to healthy bodies. They are gifts. Yet we are so focused on the things we “need” in order to feel we are getting “enough” that we either overlook, or think there is nothing very special about the fact that all of our senses work, our muscles work. We take for granted that we can interrelate with people and make a new start if we don’t like what we have been doing. We can function in the world.

  In the Jewish tradition, we are enjoined to say one hundred baruchas, or blessings, a day. God doesn’t need that; we need that. When we say a blessing, it puts us in touch with the good things in life.

  The first blessing of the day is for elimination. At first, this may seem too trivial a subject for prayer. At best, it may seem comical; at worst, blasphemous. Pray in the bathroom? Let’s just keep religion out of the toilet, shall we? But on reflection, why not? It’s the first thing we all do on awakening—let’s start the day off right! And no one hesitates to say, “Thank God!” after surgery when elimination first occurs naturally and the dread catheter is removed. Yet the process—the miracle of the system of elimi
nation—is the same. Only our attitude toward it has changed.

  We have said that, Kabbalistically, human beings are the crown of creation, because we alone can receive God’s gifts with conscious awareness. We alone can sanctify the creation and with our blessings make the mundane holy. By our blessings, our baruchas, we make the world kadosh, holy. If we thank God for the good feeling of the sun on our backs, for the sound of the breeze, for the smile in a friend’s eyes, we become aware of it. I am reminded of my first trip to Chicago, a city I loved on sight. On a public bus I found myself sitting across from a woman whose demeanor radiated good spirits. Although clearly of advanced years, her twinkling blue eyes were clear and alert. Everything about her proclaimed vitality and joy, right down to the white hair bouncing out from under her woolen winter cap and the way she held her cane. I couldn’t resist speaking to her, so I said, “Excuse me, but you seem to be such a happy person, I have to ask, ‘What is your secret?”’ She replied simply, her laughing eyes animating her smile, “I’ve always been a grateful person.” At the next stop, still smiling, she limped off the bus, looking expectant and enthusiastic as she entered a shoe-repair shop.

  The blessing is the shift of focus onto our gifts. And we must all agree that the happiest people we’ve ever met are not the ones who have the most, but the ones who appreciate the most.

  A couple of months before my marriage fell apart, I was on vacation with my family. It was a dream vacation. We had just finished almost two years in England where my husband had been working for the London office of his company, and if we wanted to get away for the weekend we could go to Paris, or if it were a three-day weekend we could make it to Copenhagen. I had gone from teaching seven days a week to not being able to get a Green Card. I had no choice but to go to museums and parks and theaters all day. It was terrific! It was a great life and the marriage was ready to be flushed. As if those two years abroad weren’t wonderful enough, we then bought an English camper and screwed the big square wooden canary’s cage to the back wall and loaded on our two mongrel dogs and our little daughter and traveled for six months all over Europe. We had our transportation, we had our food, we had our accommodations; nothing could touch us! We literally turned where we saw a rainbow. My husband had his trip, and I had my trip, and we were very unhappy and lonely.

  I can remember driving along a road in Italy just as the sun was going down and seeing some women returning from the fields where they had been harvesting grapes. Backbreaking work all day in the hot sun of August. Their arms were around each other’s waists, and they were singing. And I was jealous, because whatever it was they had, they were capable of really appreciating it and enjoying it. They would have changed places with me in a minute, and they would have been stupid to do it, because I was unhappy and they were happy. It’s not what we have in the external world, it’s how we experience it. That happens within the Suit of Pentacles. It happens in Malchut.

  Malchut is called the kingdom. What is it that turns the earth plane, with its innumerable woes, into the home of kings? Why is it Malchut that is “fit for a king” rather than Keter, the topmost sefirah of the Tree? Malchut, like the Suit of Pentacles, offers us the opportunity for blessing. When we recognize all we have been given in this life, our gratitude makes Malchut a kingdom. And our power to transform it, by blessing it, makes us monarchs in return.

  The other aspect of the Suit of Pentacles that makes it so precious is that, as we have suggested, it is the only place where we can be of service. We can take these bodies of ours, these brains of ours, these hands of ours with opposable thumbs, these mouths of ours that have the gift of speech, and our imaginations and dreams and creativity, and we can do something with them that benefits other people. What a great feeling! So the second part of the way to spirit for the Suit of Pentacles is service.

  I couldn’t wait to get out of advertising. I was making a lot of money, and I had an interesting expense account: If I didn’t send Dom Perignon to someone who got a promotion, home office would say, “No wonder she didn’t get the business. She wasn’t treating her clients right.” It was my job to go to restaurants where lunch for two was a hundred dollars. But I kept thinking back to the days when I was a high-school teacher. I had to be at work by 7:45 A.M. and grade papers all night. I had felt then that I was imparting something to young people who were vital, vulnerable, and receptive. And I thought to myself, “If the entire advertising industry slipped from the face of the earth, what would be lost? Who would be the loser?”

  Anyone on a spiritual path wants to be of use, but few recognize how many and simple the opportunities are. A Chasid (devout Jew) once asked his rebbe, “How can I best serve God?”, expecting an esoteric reply. But the rabbi responded, “With whatever you are doing at the moment.” This little story introduces the notion which in Hebrew is called kavanah, or intention. When we cultivate an attitude of appreciation, an awareness of our oneness with others, a desire to sanctify, to make kadosh all that we encounter and perform, our intention is holy, and the opportunities for service reveal themselves.

  Martin Buber, in his great work I and Thou, distinguishes between the I-Thou and the I-it relationship. In the former, we address the soul of another from the place of our own soul. We see another as a sister star, not merely a coin. In an I-it relationship, our focus is on the coin: This is a washing machine; it cleans my clothes. This is an answering machine; it delivers my messages. This is a waitress; it brings my food. On an elevator, in our cars, at the checkout register in a market, the opportunities and challenges abound. We can experience impediments and express impatience—or we can look into the eyes of another being looking out at us. We can hold the “Door Open” button, create a space for the car waiting at the stop sign, and ask, “How long have you been on your feet? Off tomorrow? Hope the weather holds up for you.” As the Zen Buddhists teach, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” The shift is internal—to kavanah, to making kadosh, to appreciation and awareness of our oneness. The shift is from I-it to I-Thou, from coin to star. The Suit of Pentacles teaches us that we don’t have to withdraw to a religious place to experience life spiritually, that spirit can manifest in the here and now.

  Being of service is so important to us that we had to leave the Garden of Eden! It is why we had to ask God to withdraw some of the energy He sent forth into the Tree of Life so that we too could make a contribution. And it is in the Suit of Pentacles and the realm of Malchut that the contribution is made. However, we must now turn our attention to the problem of Pentacles.

  The flaw of the Suit of Pentacles, the obstacle to spiritual growth inherent in the suit, is forgetting that there is a star in every coin. We can grow greedy and selfish; we can get caught up in superficiality and form. How many relationships fail because what is loved is the coin rather than the star? F. Scott Fitzgerald depicts the misery and tragedy that must follow when we love only the material form of another.

  It is staggering to recognize how many people well out of their teens continue to choose the mate who will impress others. The aging man who wants the young beauty on his arm, the one who turns every head and makes him “the envy of every man in the place.” The young beauty who chooses the aging gentleman, not for his wisdom or kindness, but for his new Mercedes and the expensive gifts he showers upon her. The small child, an embarrassment to her mother because she stutters or limps, who is left alone with her loneliness. Is the best job opportunity always the one that pays the most? Is the best companion the one who can afford to travel with us in the style to which we are accustomed?

  I used to think the women in Los Angeles were a breed apart: on any beach on any day in summer, all the bikini-clad bodies were Amazonian, goddesslike, toned and beautiful. How, I wondered, could all the women in this huge city achieve such perfection? One day the answer occurred to me. Not all Angelinas are Venusian, but the imperfect ones don’t come to the beach. Don’t dare. They forego the
joys of sea and sand, wind and sun, because the bodies housing their responsive souls are not trim and golden.

  We will see how both way and obstacle to spirit manifest in the cards of the suit.

  Ace of Pentacles

  It certainly makes sense that the aces belong to Keter. Keter is the topmost sefirah of the Tree, the point of entry for original energy. It is the first sefirah on the central pillar, the Pillar of Harmony, the pillar in which mercy and severity find perfect balance. Keter means “crown”; if we view this Tree as representing the human being, it is the place where divine energy moves into the crown chakra.

  We see a picture of something very similar in the Tarot. We see a larger-than-life hand, which is the hand of God, coming out of the heavens through a cloud, shining in a halo of white light. And what is it doing? It’s bringing something into the world, a gift. If Kabbalah means “receiving,” here is the first gift we are to receive. And the gift of the Suit of Pentacles is the gift of incarnation and materiality.

  What is the first gift we receive from the hand of God, pictured in the Ace of Pentacles? What is the first gift God gave to the first humans, Adam and Eve? The gift is the Garden of Eden, and the garden in the Ace of Pentacles, replete with red roses and white lilies, certainly suggests this. The gift of the palpable comes to full flower in Malchut, the earth plane, but its inception comes to us through the earthy aspect of the hand of God, the Ace of Pentacles. From the swirling nebulae of Keter, the chaos of the entire universe, the hand of God emerges to create the world and the first garden.

  We begin with this wonderful gift! We get to be on this earth, where green grass grows and blue water flows and stars shine at night. And the message and the challenge of the Ace is to know when to pass through the mystical arch out of a garden, a sequestered place—perhaps the garden of Eden, perhaps our own little home environment—to the stark, high, snowy mountain peaks, unsoftened by verdure, which represent the pinnacle of pure truth. (Mountains throughout the Tarot refer to reaching a higher level of unadorned truth, facing the objective truth.)