In the spirit of Halloween, I watched an old exorcism film and remembered an article I wrote in 2010, so I decided to update it.
Recently, one of the most well-known Kabbalists, Rabbi Yitzchak Batzri, passed away on September 26, 2026.
He lived a very interesting life. Most people might be surprised to know that Batzri was a Jewish exorcist,
Rabbi Yitzchak Batzri’s exorcism story never ceases to amaze me. How can anyone be so gullible?
Israel’s Channel 10 archives recently unearthed footage of another one of the Kabbalist’s exorcisms. This one involved a woman who claimed to be possessed by the spirit of her late husband, who had died about two and a half years earlier. The man was allegedly an alcoholic who had neglected to recite the Kaddish for his parents and deceased sister.
To make a long story short: the woman begins speaking in an unnervingly deep voice—reminiscent of Tacoma trance channeler JZ Knight channeling “Ramtha”—and Rabbi Batzri proceeds to banish the dybbuk through the woman’s big toe. How theatrical…
And so the story ended. Or so we thought.
Now, as Paul Harvey used to say, for the rest of the story.
Sometime later, the formerly “possessed” woman appeared in an interview on Channel 10, claiming the rabbi owed her a substantial sum of money for her acting services. To prove her point, she asserted that the entire exorcism had been staged, even dropping into the exact dybbuk voice the rabbi had allegedly expelled. According to her, the rabbi paid her an initial NIS 15,000 and promised royalties from the widely distributed tapes of the ritual—a promise he allegedly broke.
If I were her, of course, I’d produce the bank records for that initial check to settle the matter once and for all.
I don’t know about you, but in my book, this rabbi is either a fool or a charlatan. Then again, what else would you expect from a man who once gathered a group of kabbalists aboard an airplane to circle Israel, blowing shofars to ward off the unkosher swine flu? Naturally, influenza rates spiked right after his airborne concert.
The takeaway from this two-part saga is simple: real life is stranger than fiction. In turbulent economic times, people will grasp at almost anything. Historically, hardship drives people toward mysticism for comfort and answers; by the same token, charlatans have always exploited Kabbalah for personal gain—most notoriously the 17th-century false messiah, Shabbatai Tzvi.
To wrap things up, my good friend Yochanan Lavie put together a parody track that readers might enjoy humming along to.
With sincere apologies to the 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 a 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 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
’Round and ’round
’Round and ’round