Torah in the Tarot Virtual Launch: A conversation with Stav Appel and Ariana Reines

Join us for a conversation between The Torah in the Tarot's Stav Appel and poet Ariana Reines, moderated by Ayin’s editorial director Eden Pearlstein. Together, they explore the Tarot as a multifaceted cultural artifact—at once a compelling work of visual art, a game, a mystical catalyst, and, when viewed through the newest lens of The Torah in the Tarot, a powerful expression of spiritual protest. This conversation considers how the unlikely convergence of Renaissance-era gambling culture and the crypto-Jewish experience gave rise to the global phenomenon of the occult Tarot. Seen in this fuller light, the history of the Tarot offers a precious glimpse into the inescapable fragility of collective memory in which fact, myth and belief continually intermingle and evolve across centuries, no matter how earnestly we attempt to grasp a fixed and enduring truth. • Order the deck and booklet: https://shop.ayinpress.org/products/t... The ebook is also available wherever they are sold. Follow @ayinpress on Instagram for updates! • About The Torah in the Tarot: A beautiful Tarot deck and booklet revealing the lost and forgotten Jewish origins of the Tarot—featuring a foreword by poet Ariana Reines. 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 preserved 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 circa 1650, 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 Catholic Church’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 Stav Appel with a foreword by Ariana Reines, as well as a historically accurate, 78-card color reproduction of the Jean Noblet Tarot—the only modern copy that preserves the full scope of the deck’s original Judaica—created by the French artist Florent Giraud of Tarotgraphe. • Learn more about Ayin here: https://ayinpress.org/about/ • Instagram Stav Appel: @torah.tarot Ariana Reines: @arianareines Ayin Press: @ayinpress This event is cosponsored by Reboot, Vilna Shul, Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies, Invisible College, and the Jewish Museum of Buffalo.