This is really more mishegoss than I can handle on a Monday, but here goes:

First, fabulous Rachel of the Jewish record label and publishing house Craig N Co. sent an ecstatic email announcing that this year’s Jewels of Elul contributors would include La Gaga Herself.

(Jewels of Elul is a lovely concept that invites prominent humans, Jewish and not, to write small pieces on a chosen theme to commemorate the Jewish month of Elul — around August-ish— as we prepare ourselves spiritually for the new year. I consider my inclusion in 2007— along with the the Dalai Lama and Deepak Chopra! — to be the pinnacle of my career thus far.)

That’s just wacky enough to mess with my morning. Seriously, Ms. Crazy Crucible No Pants writing about “the art of beginning” across the page from Natan Sharansky, wha’?! Look, I get that she’s a boundary-shredding artist who likes hot gay men and fake blood, and the minivan often rocks with a family sing-a-long to “Poker Face.” Catchy hooks? You betcha. Talent? Definitely. Vision? Ohh-kay. But I’m not so sure there’s wisdom there.

But then my 10 year-old, fresh back from a vacation with his grandparents in New York and full of sophistication, was watching music videos and caught this Star of David symbol in Gaga’s new vid “Alejandro”:

It really is a strange piece of work to accompany a tune about a sexy Latin lothario. I’m sure the red latex nun suit and the rosary-eating has Catholics in an uproar, but I kind of shrug this off to Gaga’s personal problems with religion. Ya know, taking Madonna’s issues to the next level to see if she can make the Pope pee in his pants or something.

That wasn’t nearly as interesting to him as the steampunk goggles, and he didn’t have a thing to say about the homoerotic soldiers with Three Stooges haircuts. I suppose I should have tried to shield my kid from the simulated sexy scenes and the whips, but he’d already seen it. I couldn’t hide pop culture more from my kids if I tried — we don’t have cable, we own two Wii games and he spends maybe a half a hour a day or less on the computer. I guess I could lock him in his room with the Talmud but I think that might enhance a child’s propensity for insanity later on.

Anyway, I started looking around for symbolic interpretations for Lady Gaga’s videos and found Jewlicious’ tongue-in-cheek posts on how the tiny Roman Catholic dancer is a Jewish agent of the world-dominating Illuminati (one, two.) Ha ha ha, Mason symbolism, tee hee hee, mind control…

Except those posts led me to these posts by a blogger called Vigilant Citizen (one, two) who writes interpretations about the occult symbolism in music videos. They’re actually very well-informed about the history of conspiracy theories — VC clearly lives in his own mind and sees some very strange connections to Satan in some benign places, but hey, I’m all for personal interpretations on the Internets.

However, his followers are SCARY. The post about the hidden meaning of Gaga’s “Telephone” has almost 2000 comments, many declaring delusions that Lady Gaga’s videos are actually brainwashing people and making comments that reek of anti-Semitic “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” nonsense.

Geebus. I figured Lady Gaga must have a fairly brilliant mind under those blond wigs in order to climb so quickly to the top of the pop charts, but who knew she was a “crypto-Jew” who has infiltrated the collective unconscious to make us…dance? I wonder if Rabbi Abraham Twerski, who will also appear in this year’s Jewels of Elul, knows?

Bah. Here’s Lady’s Gaga’s vid – you tell me if it makes you want to become an agent of Satan: