How Madonna Discovered Kabbalah

...At 35, I was divorced and looking for love in all the wrong places. I decided that I needed to be more than a girl with gold teeth and gangster boyfriends. More than a sexual provocateur imploring girls not to go for second-best baby. I began to search for meaning and a real sense of purpose in life. I wanted to be a mother, but I realized that just because I was a freedom fighter didn't mean I was qualified to raise a child. I decided I needed to have a spiritual life. That's when I discovered Kabbalah.

They say that when the student is ready, the teacher appears, and I'm afraid that cliché applied to me as well. That was the next daring period of my life. In the beginning I sat at the back of the classroom. I was usually the only female. Everyone looked very serious. Most of the men wore suits and kippahs. No one noticed me and no one seemed to care, and that suited me just fine. What the teacher was saying blew my mind. Resonated with me. Inspired me. We were talking about God and heaven and hell, but I didn't feel like religious dogma was being shoved down my throat. I was learning about science and quantum physics. I was reading Aramaic. I was studying history. I was introduced to an ancient wisdom that I could apply to my life in a practical way. And for once, questions and debate were encouraged. This was my kind of place.

When the world discovered I was studying Kabbalah, I was accused of joining a cult. I was accused of being brainwashed. Of giving away all my money. I was accused of all sorts of crazy things. If I became a Buddhist—put an altar in my house and started chanting "Nam-myoho-renge-kyo"—no one would have bothered me at all. I mean no disrespect to Buddhists, but Kabbalah really freaked people out. It still does. Now, you would think that studying the mystical interpretation of the Old Testament and trying to understand the secrets of the universe was a harmless thing to do. I wasn't hurting anybody. Just going to class, taking notes in my spiral notebook, contemplating my future. I was actually trying to become a better person.  For some reason, that made people nervous. It made people mad. Was I doing something dangerous? It forced me to ask myself, Is trying to have a relationship with God daring? Maybe it is.

Source



P.S.

 she and her current partner Brahim Zaibat, 25, have reportedly argued about religion because of his Muslim faith.

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Madonna's Rosh Hashana Kaballah Fashion

From here:

I see one kippah and one, well, er, a non-fringed face tallit?

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Going to Kabbalah Schule

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Madonna off to Saturday Kaballah services:
 

and behind the mechitza:

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The Kabbalah Kutie Sweatshirt

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Story.

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Madonna is So Peaceful

The persons in this picture, founders of the Palestinian-Israel Peace NGOs Forum, are standing together with Madonna on her recent visit:

We spoke to her for a few minutes and we asked if she would say anything about peace,' Peace Now's Yariv Oppenheimer told AFP, 

And just afterwards, she appeared on stage so

and like this

So peaceful.

Just like the Oslo Peace Process.

That's real kaballah.

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Madonna and The Police Announcement

Madonna put on a show here in Israel last night, accompanied by Rabbi Eitan Yardeni, her personal spiritual tutor.

Some 30,000 people showed up.  Several hundred who were provided free tickets didn't come *.

The police published instructions on parking, on routes of arrival, on closed streets, entrance rules, seating and a few other things.

Here is how it looked:

This is nice, though:

Madonna’s decision to play in Israel contrasts with other musicians over the past two years who canceled performances after protests by pro-Palestinian groups, including Elvis Costello, Santana, Gil Scott-Heron and Cassandra Wilson. That an Italian-American Catholic named for the mother of Jesus would end up among the Jewish state’s biggest supporters in the global pop elite is one of the stranger twists even in the extraordinary career of Madonna Louise Ciccone.

and this, too:

During that show, she wrapped herself in an Israeli flag and called Israel the "energy center of the world."

*

...she held a private meeting the day before with Israeli and Palestinian peace activists, and provided them with 600 free tickets.   “Madonna said peace was the only solution and encouraged us to pursue it,” Ron Pundak, head of the Israeli chapter of the Peace NGO Forum, said in a telephone interview.

and

Madonna invited a variety of progressive and left-wing groups to come to her concert for free tonight, including residents of Neve Shalom (an Arab-Jewish cooperative village near Jerusalem), Combatants for Peace, Shatil and Peace Now (Hebrew). The invitation was made through the Palestinian-Israeli Peace NGO forum, a network of over 100 NGOs working towards peace in the region.  Anarchists Against the Wall was also invited but declined, citing that Palestinians under occupation do not have the most basic rights, let alone the ability to attend such a concert...The Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement also declined the invitation, explaining that Madonna’s failure to ever condemn Israeli policies renders the word “peace” meaningless...Solidarity movement also refused (Hebrew):

I wonder, did she invite any Jewish residents living in locations included in the territory of the Jewish national home but not under Israel’s full sovereignty?

If not, how peaceful can that be?


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Wow, Israel Leads Off The News

Madonna has announced that she will go on tour from May for the first time in three years, starting in Israel and so leads off the BBC, Reuters and many others.

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Madonna Has Gone 'Meah Shearim Black'?

The Kabbalah Kutie in black:

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Some Go To Synagogue And Some

Go to a Kabbalah Center:

That's the Kabbalah Kutie.

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Madonna and Settlement Talks

No, not those "settlements" in Judea and Samaria - the Jewish communities in which Jewish revenants live in their patrimony, their national homeland.

Settlement talks over a few millions of dollars.  Here Madonna finds out how much Kabbalah is worth:

Madonna chaired the board of Spirituality for Kids and donated more than $600,000 to the cause, according to tax filings cited by the Times. The subpoenas do not indicate that she personally is under scrutiny, the newspaper said. One of the singer's charities, Raising Malawi, also is under investigation in the tax matter, even though it cut ties to the Kabbalah Centre this spring.

"Raising Malawi is actively cooperating with all investigations and will continue to do so," Madonna's publicist, Liz Rosenberg, told The Associated Press in an email saying it would be her only comment.

The Kabbalah Centre has been controlled by the Berg family for more than 40 years and has grown into an international organization that has drawn celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Gwyneth Paltrow.

he Times indicated the center might have assets of $260 million.

The center is run by chief executive Karen Berg, 68, with the help of sons Michael Berg, 37, and Yehuda Berg, 38.

The federal investigation follows several court actions involving the center's finances. A trustee sorting out a $68 million fraud scheme in a New York bankruptcy court has demanded the center return $2.9 million it received as an investor in what turned out to be phony financial scheme.

Settlement talks were ongoing.

Heiress Courtenay Geddes filed two lawsuits against the center earlier this year. One claims the Bergs and others connected to the center defrauded her of about $1.3 million. The other alleges Geddes contributed $500,000 for a homeschooling program that never was created.

Geddes' attorney argued in February that the center and its related organizations exist primarily to enrich the Berg family.

The Kabbalah Kutie is out of this world.

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Will the Kabbalah Kutie Be Creamed?

Reported:-

Madonna‘s “religion” and the main object of her charity giving, the Kabbalah Centre, is being investigated by the IRS. Sources tell me that a federal grand jury has been convened to ask questions about the organization...The targets of the investigation, sources tell me, are the Kabbalah Centre, Raising Malawi, and the Berg family–mother Karen and sons Yehuda and Michael, who own the company. Madonna, they say, is aware of the grand jury...In 2008-2009, she donated $2.5 million to them.

...As I told you this weekend, the Kabbalah Centre is being sued in Los Angeles for $20 million by Courtenay Geddes, a wealthy donor who claims now that she was swindled by the Centre and the Bergs. Madonna is being sued in Malawi by the board of directors of her cancelled school project for Raising Malawi, her charitable effort there with the Kabbalah Centre

However

Carly Sullivan of the US Attorney’s office in Manhattan said the office could neither confirm or deny anything about grand jury proceedings.

Is she praying hard?

More info & background here.

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Madonna's Shtetl Look?

The Kabbalah Kutie arrives in London:

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Lourdes As a Seminary Girl

Even Lourdes, daughter of Madonna, on her way to a Kabbalah service in New York, seems to appear no different than your average seminary-girl, no?

More Madonna Kabbalah Kutie Narashkeit

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Brahim Zaibat is a devout Muslim who – according to his mother – prays to Allah a number of times a day and shuns alcohol and cigarettes.

Those religious views contrast sharply with the hedonistic lifestyle personified by the Material Girl. Moreover, Madonna is a high-profile follower of Kabbalah, a variation of Judaism.


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Madonna With Tzitzit?

Madonna was spotted in Manhattan this past weekend going to a Kabbalah class:

But is that a tzitzit, the fringes worn on four-cornered garments?

What do you think?

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No, This Is Not Madonna Leaving the Mikva

She's all wet but...



...she's clothed and soaked from a London rain shower.

Rain, like in:

Rain, feel it on my finger tips
Hear it on my window pane
Your love's coming down like
Rain, wash away my sorrow
Take away my pain
Your love's coming down like rain

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Madonna, Kabbalah Kutie, Discovers Real Kabbalah

There is a more esoteric element in Kabbalah termed gilgul neshamot (see here).

That means, alternatively, recycling of souls, reincarnation, transmigration or metempsychosis.


Well, it seems Madonna has reached this stage:-




She is reported to be coming to Israel soon with Rabbi Yehuda-Phillip Berg (aka Shraga Feivel Gruberger) for a birthday celebration, I think.



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Is Madonna Doing Yentl?

Yentl.

Kabbalah Kutie Madonna Does Moshe (Dayan)

Look Who Came to the Seder

...last night, the two [adopted children David and Mercy] were at the centre of their adopted family as they celebrated the Jewish festival of Passover. Along with older siblings Lourdes and Rocco, their mother Madonna and her boyfriend Jesus Luz, the family arrived at the Kabbalah Centre in London.