WHEN CULTS COLLIDE WITH RELIGIONS

Say what you like about the Scientologists - actually, don't, those guys love to send legal letters - but at least when L Ron Hubbard invented his religion from scratch, he made up everything. Not so the Kabbalah squad, who have created a cult based on a genuine wing of Jewish religious teaching - kind of as if we decided to launch a fashion and water industry based on John the Baptist, but without worrying about all that tiresome Jesus business.

Sooner or later, there was going to be a clash, and it looks like Madonna's new album is going to be the point where Kabbalah Centre acolytes push it too far:

The album, "Confessions on a Dance Floor," is to be released on Nov. 15 and features a track entitled "Isaac" about Yitzhak Luria, a 16th century Jewish mystic and Kabbalah scholar.

Rabbis who oversee Luria's tomb and a seminary in the northern town of Safed are unimpressed with Madonna's musical tribute and see the inclusion of the song about Luria on the album as an attempt by the pop star to profit from his name.

Rabbi Rafael Cohen, head of a seminary named after Luria, suggested Madonna's actions could lead to divine retribution.

"Jewish law forbids the use of the name of the holy rabbi for profit. Her act is just simply unacceptable and I can only sympathize for her because of the punishment that she is going to receive from the heavens," Cohen told the newspaper.

Another rabbi called for Madonna to be thrown out of the community.

"Such a woman brings great sin on kabbalah," Rabbi Israel Deri told Maariv. "I hope that we will have the strength to prevent her from bringing sin upon the holiness of the rabbi (Yitzhak Luria)."

To be fair, of course, Madonna isn't directly profiting from namechecking the rabbi, as she seems to be pouring more and more of her cash into the Kabbalah Centre, a clearing house for overpriced string and feel-good babble - there were reports she'd bought a second central London property for the group a couple of weeks ago.

Interestingly, Madonna still hasn't quite found the time to respond to the claims of that high-ranking member of the Kabbalah Centre staff who told the BBC that, pretty much, the Jews murdered in the holocaust could have avoided their fate if they'd embraced Kabbalah. When the story first broke, Madonna's publicist explained she was too busy rehearsing for the tsunami benefit to respond at that point - nearly a year on, and it seems she's still finding it tricky to make room in her diary for any sort of response.

Thanks to Lee T for the link.

music madonna kabbalah