Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Music

Madonna On The Hidden World: From Material Girl to Queen Esther

In her first of what she promises will be a regular column for Yediot Ahronot Madonna has explained how she was turned on to Kabbalah.

She notes how her fame and global traveling hadn’t helped “when it came to trying to understand why people suffered in the world or what the meaning of life was all about.” Kabbalah opened her eyes to how things worked: “Nature and the laws of Cause and Effect.” To the quintessential material girl, suddenly, “[l]ife no longer seemed like a series of Random events…[she] started to see patterns in life.” As she puts it, “I woke up.”

There are obvious encomia to those who have helped wake her up, and road-to-Damascus (or should that be from-Damascus?) insights. Perhaps her own alacrity or some judicious editing have kept the column short but interesting — even if its fascination lies with the author’s celebrity rather than her slightly sophomoric prose.

Two things still remain hidden though: How long will she continue writing the column (neither she nor Yediot Ahronot have specified the length of their arrangement), and why?

Why does a global star with nothing obvious to sell want to write her own column? And why does she start by omitting that most obvious of questions? Perhaps to get us to read the next one?!

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.