Pop diva Madonna, who turned guest writer for Israel's Yediot Ahronot newspaper, has in her article revealed her spiritual awakening upon discovering Jewish mysticism called Kabbalah.
Bearing the Music hitmaker's byline, the story describes her awakening after which, she says "all the puzzle pieces started falling into place", reports The New York Times.
The singer is bringing her Sticky & Sweet tour to Israel in September, which explains the timing of her journalism debut there. But she also has ties to Israel and Judaism through her involvement with the Los Angeles-based Kabbalah Center, whose new-age version of Judaism's ancient mystic tradition has become popular among members of Hollywood's A-listers.
The 50-year-old pop icon has taken the Hebrew name Esther. She came to Israel on private pilgrimages in 2004 and 2007 along with other Kabbalah devotees.
In the article, Madonna, who was raised Roman Catholic, describes hearing about Kabbalah for the first time at a dinner party in Los Angeles while pregnant with her daughter Lourdes, who is now 12.
She wrote: "Still felt like something was missing in my life" and so she went to her first class, taught by a teacher named Eitan, after years of practicing Yoga and reading about Buddhism, Taoism and early Christianity.
"I heard what he had to say and I knew at this moment my life would never be the same," she wrote in the article, which the paper published both in Hebrew and in the original (apparently unedited) English.
{{/usCountry}}"I heard what he had to say and I knew at this moment my life would never be the same," she wrote in the article, which the paper published both in Hebrew and in the original (apparently unedited) English.
{{/usCountry}}"Life no longer seemed like a series of Random events... I also began to see that being rich and famous wasn't going to bring me lasting fulfilment and that it was not the end of the journey," she wrote.