LIKE A RELIGIOUS VIRGIN MADONNA JOINS 'DEVOUT' DEMI, BRITNEY, WINONA, MICK.

Byline: Phil Perrier Local View

YOU can't make this stuff up.

Madonna, the spunky little sexpot who grabbed our attention 20 years ago as she writhed seductively in a gondola and sang ``Like a Virgin.'' The same Madonna who stole Dennis Rodman's innocence and made her fellow Catholics blush with ``Like a Prayer.'' The Madonna who has more lately adopted a fake English accent, now that she's living in London with filmmaker husband Guy Richie.

Now she's changed her name to the Hebrew ``Esther.''

That's because Esther/Madonna has latched on to the latest cheesy celebrity fad - Kabbalah, ancient Hebrew mysticism. The Kabbalah's list of recent converts reads like a who's who of respected theological minds: Demi Moore, Britney Spears, Mick Jagger and Winona Ryder.

Rumors are swirling that the Material Girl is so smitten with the phenomenon that she's trying to get Richie to change his name to Mort Finkleman.

The actual Kabbalah consists of collected Hebrew works amassed during the 12th and 13th centuries in Spain. Until recently, these teachings were studied primarily by only the most serious Hebrew scholars and rabbis. The form of Kabbalah snatched up by today's rich and trendy is a Reader's Digest version of the teachings being served up by the movement's leader, Philip Berg, a former insurance agent previously known as Feivel Gruberger.

Berg heads the Los Angeles-based Kabbalah Center, although he has been assailed as a charlatan by many respected Jewish scholars for passing off his dumbed-down, new-agey teachings as true Kabbalah. Scholars say he encourages his followers to meditate on letters and symbols of which they have no real understanding.

Presumably, those in this new breed of Hebrew mystics are dropouts from Scientology and people who feel that Buddhism is ``like totally `91.'' So, between visits to pet psychics and botox injections, Madonna and her fellow new disciples find time to attend Kabbalah classes. Or at least listen to the books on tape.

Why is she doing it? ``I want to be more liberated from my ego.''

OK, are you done laughing? Madonna saying she wants to be liberated from her ego is like Mike Tyson saying he wants to get in touch with his feminine side.

How perfect that Madonna's latest ego trip is about not having an ego. Only she is too egomaniacal to see the delicious irony involved.

I have no ego. I am one with the universe. Hey, where's my bullet bra?

But, hey, this whole reinvention thing had to hit the wall eventually. You have to admit she's had a pretty good run: pop star, film star, author of ``Sex.'' Then, finally, she started acting her age: got married, had kids, even wrote a children's book, ``The English Roses.''

Always grabbing headlines, always finding our hot buttons. There had to be one too many. She had to jump the shark at some point, and I think Madonna as the Hebrew prophet just may be the one giant leap into the abyss. Of course, 10 years from now, when Madonna is doing an Apache rain dance onstage in Las Vegas, we may look back fondly on these days.

Why do celebrities go off on these flights of fancy? Why do they change religions the way most of us change socks? Because they have money, free time and an army of sycophants who tell them only what they want to hear. While most of us are busy trying to pay our Visa bill and keep a roof over our heads, Madonna can grab a new belief system, and David Hasselhoff can record a rap album. In short, these people have no one to say, ``What in the world are you doing? Stop acting like a jackass.''

Is this to imply that a genuine interest in other religions and cultures is wrong? No. But Madonna is not reading and learning; she is parading the thing around as if she invented it. She is wearing traditional Hebrew garb in her videos and flashing Kabbalah texts on the jumbotron at her concerts. That such gaudiness is seen as sacrilege by devout Jews is as lost on Madonna as, well, her virginity.

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Madonna, now calling herself Esther the Hebrew mystic offstage, performs at Madison Square Garden in New York this week.

Chad Rachman/Associated Press