From Atheism to Auras: Rabbi Zevulun’s Spiritual Journey

This week on In Another Direction, a special episode filled with spiritual energy, we met a unique guest: Rabbi Zevulun Rbeiv, a man who began life as a committed atheist and is now a passionate believer, known for using a special device to visually demonstrate the power of mitzvot (commandments) on the soul.

Rabbi Rbeiv immigrated to Israel from Bukhara in 1976 when he was just 14 and a half years old. He grew up under a strict communist regime where religion was banned and atheism was taught in schools. “At school, they taught us Darwin’s theory. That was the truth we were given,” he says. “The commandments seemed strange to me. I thought religious Jews were disconnected and living off the state.”

Yet, even in those early years, he found himself attending lectures by rabbis, not to learn, but to challenge. “I came to argue,” he admits. “What bothered me most was that Judaism seemed mystical, without evidence. I wanted facts.”

Today, Rabbi Rbeiv is on the complete opposite side of the road. Not only does he believe deeply in Judaism, he travels throughout Israel and around the world to speak about faith, armed with a remarkable tool: an aura camera. This special device measures subtle changes in the body’s energy and visually displays them as colors. If someone’s spiritual state is low, the aura appears red. But if that person puts on tefillin (phylacteries), says Tehillim (Psalms), or washes their hands according to halacha (Jewish law), the colors shift in a powerful and visible way.

"When Seventy Coincidences Happen at Once, It’s Not Random"

Rabbi Rbeiv reflects on the spiritual environment of his childhood. “After the communist revolution, they exiled all the rabbis to Siberia,” he shares. “Only those who had learned in Talmud Torah schools, like my grandfather, kept Judaism alive for 70 years. There were no intermarriages back then. I remember watching him work hard just to buy matzah for Pesach and he would sort the wheat three times.”

So how did he go from that heritage to complete atheism?

“At school, for 7–8 hours a day, they taught us that people who believed in G-d were crazy. We were only shown what they wanted us to see. And what they didn’t want us to see, we didn’t even know to ask about.”

Even as he got older and began asking questions, he did so from a place of challenge. “I’d go to rabbi lectures and demand, ‘Why should I bless a glass of water?’ They’d say, ‘Because it’s written.’ And I’d say, ‘So what? Do you believe everything you’re told? And if I don’t bless, what happens?’”

What changed?

“I studied mechanical engineering and worked in the Israeli Air Force. There were situations that made no sense. I’d look at a damaged plane engine and think, how did this plane even fly? There was no physical explanation. I remember one case on planes, the bolts are tied down with wires, divided between hot and cold areas. One time, wires from the U.S. meant for cold areas were accidentally used in a hot area. All the bolts should’ve come loose. But nothing moved. Everything held together.”

Skeptics might say it was just coincidence.

“I like asking questions, and I’ve had all kinds of experiences in life. But when seventy coincidences happen at once, it’s no longer coincidence.”

From Science to Soul

So how did he connect to the world of auras?

Later in the interview, Rabbi Rbeiv explained how the device works. “The machine measures the body’s frequencies, things like temperature and moisture and translates that into colors that appear on the computer. Its accuracy is about 87%.”

Interestingly, the aura device wasn’t originally built for spirituality.

“It was meant for hospitals, to quickly assess patients when they arrived. Instead of waiting for blood pressure or bloodwork, this machine gives immediate feedback. It’s still being studied around the world.”

So what’s the connection between spirituality and physical readings?

“That’s the wonder of it. You can test a wire, a piece of string and nothing happens. But when a person puts on tefillin, there’s an immediate change in the aura. What does that tell you? That tefillin really do something. And these aren’t believers I’m testing. These are people who come to argue. I love it when people come to attack, it means they’re thinking.”

He says he once asked a rabbi, “How is it possible to measure spirituality with an electronic device?” The answer he received was simple and powerful: “Before the coming of Mashiach (the Messiah), all forms of wisdom will descend into the world.”

“Whether we understand it or not, it’s real,” Rabbi Rbeiv says. “A man puts on tefillin and his aura changes. A woman washes her hands with a netilat yadayim cup and the aura changes. That’s something you can see.”

But could it be psychological? Maybe people expect something to happen, and so it does?

“We’ve tested it,” he says. “We even tried using tefillin that were invalid, the parchment inside was removed. And we saw a difference. The aura looked cloudy, like it was folding inward. Then the person put on kosher tefillin, and immediately there was a crown-like effect on the head in the photo.”

The science may still be catching up, but for Rabbi Rbeiv, the truth is clear and now he’s using technology to show the world the power of even the smallest mitzvah.