My Dove, my simple one.

7) Wherever you place the Fool the number sequence is going to be displaced, by placing it with Alef the displacement is consistent throughout.

"The Italians used to say colloquially, 'Esser come Il Matto nel tarocchi' (to be like the tarot Fool) - all over the place, at home everywhere and nowhere." [Huson, p.76]


7a) The 'displacement' of n+1 is itself indicative of a dynamic process, representing the 'steps' of the Fool on his journey.

As Grand Orient, Waite emphasised the Fool card as being outside of the series of trumps, there being 21 trumps plus the Fool. One may consider him at the beginning of the series, or at the end or within it at a point unfolding in his journey, "a prince from another world on his travels through this one."

A stranger in a strange land, why else should the dog attack him? So who is this exile but a figure of the soul, a pilgrim of love, who as a child of poverty will never be satisfied with anything in this world, for its love is an insatiable appetite that can only be satisfied in the eternal and infinite; thus the pilgrims journey is ultimately a return to the One from whence he comes.

The letter Alef is not only the number One, but also a Thousand, thus encompassing the beginning and end of the units, tens and hundreds; and is present in all that unfolds in between. It is both part and whole, minimum and maximum, the seed and the tree, the source and completion, the unfolding of all number enfolded within it.

The letters of the name ALPh itself, Alef [1], Lamed [30] and Pe [80] as numbers added together equal 111; one hundred, one ten and one unit. That is the three levels of number that it itself, as meaning both one and one thousand, encompasses. Three levels, which symbolise the three worlds and the soul, composed of three aspects; that derives from and shall ultimately return to haShem.

The letter Alef is said to be composed of two letter Yods [10] with a letter Vau [6] in between. Added together these equal 26, which is the same value as that of haShem, YHVH [10+5+6+5]. In kabbalistic texts you will see the letters of the name YHVH inscribed within the letter Alef to emphasise this connection [a Yod in the upper arm, two Heh at each end of the Vau stroke, and a Vau in the lower arm].

At the beginning of its [the soul's] journey it is lost and without memory, having drunk from the waters of forgetfulness. Its journey is not so much one of discovery, as recollection; remembrance of haShem, whose name is imprinted upon it. Considered as a journey, one way of looking at the formula n+1 as representing steps on the Fool's [soul’s] pilgrimage through this world [the dog maybe as time in the flesh, that keeps moving him forward, and will ultimately devour him].

7b)} Numerical sayings in the bible have the format of creating parallels with number N in first line and N+1 in second, thus there is a precedent in Biblical and Hebrew tradition [common in fact to all Canaanite literature].

For example proverbs 30:15, "three things are insatiable, four never say enough" which then goes on to list four things that are insatiable and never say enough. Of such numerical saying the commentary to the tanack translation in the Hebrew Study Bible says:

"When two numbers are mentioned in parallel, the second number is usually what is really meant. Sometimes the numbered items are followed by a supernumerary item, which represents the extreme or surprising case. Numerical sayings are common in the bible and other Canaanite literature."

Conversations about number differences are also frequent in Kabbalistic literature such as the Bahir and the Zohar [and is also to be found in Christian literature too, in the number symbolism of the relation between the 8th day and the world to come and the 7th day the Sabbath for example].

7c) If it is believed there is a 'mystical' meaning to the sequence of cards then apparent contradiction shouldn't be surprising, in fact is to be expected, as the use of paradox is common to all mystical traditions seeking to express the union of opposites in the eternal.

References:
"The Jewish Study Bible"  (Oxford University Press, 1985)

Huson, P. Mystical Origins of the Tarot. (Destiny, 2004)