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Madonna’s First Israeli Column

Has zeal of the sort-of converted

by
Marc Tracy
July 31, 2009

In the first of her “Exclusive” columns for Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, Madonna narrates the road-to-Damascus—or, in her case, dinner-party-in-L.A.—moment when it became clear to her that, because of Kabbalah, the ancient strain of mystical Judaism, “my life would never be the same.” It was 14 (yes, only 14) years ago. She had just finished filming Evita and was pregnant with daughter Lourdes. She “was looking for an answer,” and not to the question of who was catering this fabulous food. Woman tells her about class; Madonna starts attending; she gets hooked; etc. “I also began to see that being Rich and Famous wasn’t going to bring me lasting fulfillment and that it was not the end of the journey; that it was the beginning of the journey,” she writes. She praises Michael Berg, the son of Hollywood-Kabbalah founder “Rav” Berg, for being perhaps “the smartest person I know,” who “is as comfortable and knowledgeable about discussing the teachings of the Ari as he is of discussing his favorite Seinfeld episode” (for the record, it’s the one where Jerry’s car smells really bad).

So, yeah. Kinda wacky, mostly harmless. Pretty much what you’d expect.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.