Reva Unterman

Reva Unterman, originally from London now lives in Israel. Both her father and grandfather were internationally respected orthodox rabbis. She is currently working on a novel set against a backdrop of Halachic and Midrashic sources.

Could this mystic healer be the Messiah?

Thursday 5th 2007f April 2007

I am walking into Oren Zarif’s clinic in Givat Shaul to find a waiting room overflowing with people. The walls are covered with framed newspaper cuttings discussing Oren’s healing successes and mystical powers.

I catch sight of the 31 year old star, walking in and out of treatment rooms, greeting everyone.

His dark hair falls long to his shoulders, his eyes are dark and intense and he looks more like a Red Indian that the great grandson of a famous mekubal.

Oren’s great grandfather Rav Pinchas Hachohen, one of the great cabbalists of Bukhara at the turn of the century (who was said to have a weekly chevrusa with Eliyahu Hanovi every motzei Shabbat) came to Oren in dream when he was eleven, urging him to use his powers for healing.

Psychokenesis isn’t so uncommon in the holy land. We’ve got Uri Geller who just ran a TV show seeking his successor. The series brought many talented young men who can read minds, stop watches and bend spoons, to the stage. This has been very entertaining, but Oren Zarif, who has been known to stop traffic lights at a Ra’anana crossroads, is now putting his powers to better use.

Oren runs 8 clinics around the country and heals 300 people a day. And how you may ask does he do this…because he needs only one minute with each patient in order to deplete them of all their energy (good and bad) till they have no pulse and can be considered clinically dead, a state which allows him to intervene with their thought process and project positive waves into them. Once he has done that, their ailments often disappear.

Everyone in the waiting room is swapping miraculous stories. One was in a wheelchair and can now walk, another couldn’t use an arm and now waves it in the air above his head, and a third who was so depressed she couldn’t get out of bed is now smiling and joking. For all these people, Oren is a saviour.

Oren gives me only a few minutes of his time in between treatments where I learn his philosophy of life…eat drink and be merry! He believes that living life to the full is the key to well being. “Living for the moment,” he says, “ is the paradoxical answer for a long life.” And live to the full he does…in a fancy villa, riding a motor bike, driving a sports car, drinking Jonny Walker and smoking cigars. “You need to muddle up the Satan,” he says, “if you just eat organic it gives him an easy way in. Live in a mess. The need for order comes from fear and tension and that brings cancer.”

“I don’t think my oncologist would agree with that,” I say. “Well then he doesn’t know anything,” he replies.

I have watched Oren’s manipulations closely on the DVDs he gave me. His hands work quickly and confidently as if clicking on and off invisible switches on patient’s heads and necks. He has now begun to teach his technique to groups of students, who he hopes will aid him in the future in healing the masses.

When he’s not in the clinic, Oren is often flying high in helicopters working for governments, advising them where to dig for diamonds. But his main aspiration is to be Prime Minister. “Surely being able to access the minds and thoughts of others would be a great asset to the Israeli Knesset,” he says. He has already put his powers into action to give Ahamdinejad a deadly disease.

I know we are all expecting a zaddik on a white donkey to trot on up to Jerusalem and this long-haired playboy doesn’t really fit the bill, but who knows- God works in mysterious ways - maybe Oren Zarif is the man we’ve all been waiting for…