Leviticus 19:26

"You shall not practice divination or soothsaying."

At first glance this seemed like a strange verse for me to choose considering both of my parents as well as my best friend read tarot and I've taken a passing interest in the skill myself. In a strange twist though, I would say my experience in a family that owns more tools of divination than most helps me to live a modern interpretation of this rule far more closely than I otherwise would. When I first expressed a passing interest in her tarot decks my mom explained her own interpretation of what value a tarot deck might have when she isn't necessarily a superstitious person at all. While she doesn't believe that a random draw of cards could really predict anyone's future she does view it as a form of personal reflection. Tarot cards work best when when they're used on a subject that the reader understands, and while I don't think they reveal that future, they can definitely give you something to consider about yourself or the future that you might have missed if you hadn't been reminded to think of it. Going by the assumption that divination isn't actually possible it's fairly easy to follow the word of the rule directly but what we really need to avoid more than simply party tricks and palm reading is approaching our future with blind certainty. If you believe in the idea of divination and you practice some way of diving your fate than you believe what ever answer it gives you. IdI say that's very different than a modern interpretation of tarot where the answers presented aren't nesesarinec answers but instead food for thought. In our media we are bombarded with things telling us who or what we are and will be, from a small or harmless buzzfeed quiz to the imposing comentaries on the future of our generation. I think what we can learn from this commandment is that instead of taking what werew told of the future by these modern substitutes for divination as given, we should self reflect and look for our own answers to what our future might bring.

The picture I chose for this commandment is the death card from the traditional Rider Waite tarot deck. While this might seem grim at first glance, in common understanding this card is actually one of the most misunderstood, representing not death in the literal sense but instead change, the death of one thing and the beginning of another. I think the missunderstood concept of this card, and the concept of tarot and divination that it is a part of, is what in a modern interpretation of this commandment we should seek to avoid, using divination or any other uncertain source as a dead certain prediction of our future.