The story about Rabbi Yitzchak Batzri’s exorcism continues to surprise me. How can anyone be so gullible?
Channel 10 archives produced another one of the Kabbalist’s exorcisms involving a woman who claimed to be possessed by the spirit of her deceased husband, who had died about two-and-a-half years earlier. The man was believed to be a drunk who neglected to say Kaddish over his parents and dead sister. To make a long story short, the woman speaks in a deep voice (reminiscent of the Tacoma trans-medium JZ Knight, a.k.a. “Ramtha”) and Rabbi Batzri banishes the dybbuk from the woman’s big toe. How conjuring . . . And so the story ended–or so we thought.
And now you are going to hear the rest of the story . . .
Sometime later, the formerly possessed woman receives an interview on Channel 10 where she claims the Rabbi owes her a substantial amount of money for failing to pay her for her services. To prove her point, she claims the entire story was staged, as she imitates the voice of the dybbuk the rabbi allegedly banished. She alleged that the rabbi paid her NIS 15,000 and had even agreed to pay her royalties from the copies of the tape of the exorcism which were widely distributed after the fact, but failed to live up to his promise.
Hmmm . . . If I were that woman, I would show the bank-records of the original check that the Rabbi gave her.
I am not sure about you, but I think that either this rabbi is either a fool or a charlatan. But again, what else would you expect from a man who gathered a group of kabbalists to circle Israel in a plane, while blowing shofars to drive away the unkosher Swine Flu? Incidentally, the influenza infection spiked up after his shofar-blowing concert.
The moral of our two-part story is simply this: Real life is more interesting than fiction could ever be. In an age of economic difficulties such as ours, people will believe in just about anything. Historically, in bad times, people have often gravitated to the Kabbalah for inspiration; yet, by the same token, there have been many charlatans who have misused Jewish mysticism for personal gain–the most famous being the 17th century charismatic Kabbalist, Shabbatai Tzvi.
My good friend Yochanan Lavie put together a new song I think our readers will enjoy humming to:
Apologies to Steve Miller Band:
I frum out, I can’t cool down
You got me davening
‘Round and ’round
‘Round and ’round and ’round it goes
Where it stops only God knows
Every time I call The Name
I heat up like a fevered brain
Fevered brain full of kabbalah
Kiss the mezuzah, let the fervor get hotter
Chorus:
Abra-abra-cadabra
I want some magic Kabbalah
Abra-abra-cadabra
Abracadabra
It makes me hot, it makes me schrei
It makes you laugh, it makes me lie
Keep me burnin’ for a magic spell
With the touch of superstition, as well
chorus
I feel the magic of my prayers
I feel magic when my shofar blares
Silk tzitzis, leather tefillin
Black magic if the angel’s willin’
I see magic in my rebbe
I hear the magic when his sermon’s heavy
Just when I think I’m gonna get my way
I hear those words that I always say
chorus
Every time I call The Name
I heat up like a deluded brain
Deluded brain full of magic
Kiss the mezuzah, let the results get tragic
I heat up, I can’t cool down
My superstition goes ’round and ’round 3x