Qoph: The Hebrew Letter of Back of the Head

Qoph is the nineteenth Hebrew letter and a simple letter; its name is traditionally glossed 'back of the head' and its value is 100. Its descender, dropping below the line, is read as a letter reaching into the depths. The Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation), the foundational text of Jewish letter-mysticism compiled in late antiquity, divides the twenty-two Hebrew consonants into three groups: three 'mother' letters (Aleph, Mem, Shin) assigned to the elements Air, Water and Fire; seven 'double' letters, each with a hard and soft pronunciation, assigned to the seven classical planets and to seven pairs of opposites; and twelve 'simple' letters assigned to the twelve signs of the zodiac and the twelve months. As a simple letter Qoph is assigned to the sign Pisces and the month of Adar.

A separate and much later system, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (founded 1888), mapped the twenty-two letters onto the twenty-two trumps of the tarot along the paths of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. This tarot correspondence is a modern Western-esoteric overlay, not part of the ancient Hebrew or classical Kabbalistic tradition. The Golden Dawn assigns Qoph to The Moon (trump XVIII), the card of dream, depth and illusion matching watery Pisces.