Co-opting Kabbalah; Israelis prepare for the arrival of the red-string brigade.

Byline: Dan Ephron (With Joanna Chen in Tel Aviv)

Avraham Ravitz won't try to block her visit or picket her hotel room. But the 70-year-old rabbi isn't exactly happy that pop star Madonna--er, Esther--plans to be in Israel this week for a conference on Jewish mysticism. For one thing, he says, only men steeped in Jewish scholarship are allowed to study kabbalah, as the ancient discipline is known. Madonna has been dabbling in it for a few years at Hollywood's flashy Kabbalah Center--the current in-vogue destination for celebrity spirituality seekers ranging from Britney Spears to Ashton Kutcher. Then there's her lifestyle--the lewd music videos, the nudity in books and films. And though she sometimes wears a Star of David around her neck, Madonna is, after all, a shiksa. "Maybe it makes her feel good to study these texts," says Ravitz, who is also a member of Israel's Parliament. "But it's extremely inappropriate."

Plenty of others agree. Rabbis in Israel and abroad worry that the Kabbalah Center Madonna now helps underwrite--founded by insurance agent turned rabbi Philip Berg--distorts and commercializes a philosophy that for centuries has been deliberately kept elusive to force devotees to work hard to grasp it. Berg now has 50 centers, in Britain and Israel as well as the United States. His four-day conference in Tel Aviv this week is expected to draw about 2,000 people--a remarkable showing for a religious gathering in the war-torn Jewish state. "Celebrities are always looking for some authentic-seeming spirituality away from the mainstream of Christian and Jewish faith," says Boaz Huss, who teaches Jewish philosophy at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba. "Berg has made it easy to digest and easy to practice in daily life."

Indeed, being a kabbalist often seems to require little more than tying a red string around your wrist. Stripped down, kabbalah amounts to a series of interpretations of Jewish Scriptures. Berg's classes include lectures on these interpretations and on the Zohar, kabbalah's main text. But much of the practice revolves around feel-good prayer services and charms that his center sells for profit--like healing stones and meditation cards. The trinkets have no doubt contributed to Berg's fortune, which is said to be worth more than $20 million. A new branch of the Kabbalah Center in Jerusalem, featuring hardwood floors and a large lecture hall, sells kits containing a ...