What destroyed Jackson, and what is destroying Spears, the rabbi says, "is being bereft of a normal life, the sting of which is compensated for by the soothing warmth of the spotlight."

Not that people can't pursue public success, says the syndicated radio talk show host. "But there has to be a balance between the public and private Adam."

The rabbi himself has a wife, "thank God, who is a very spiritual and wholesome human being."

"I look up to her." The point, he says, is to "never believe that the contribution I make to the world at large is any greater than my contribution to my wife and family."

Rabbi Shmuley began his religious career in London, where he was the rabbi at Oxford University for 11 years. Four years ago, when he and his wife and their children moved back to the United States and settled in Englewood, N.J., he decided he would rather be "an exponent of Jewish ideas" rather than have his own synagogue. Despite his own public life and the fame it has brought, he considers himself "an ordinary man."

The good life, he says, should be "where you make the ordinary moments extraordinary, the everyday unique." Americans, though, find their meaning in the Super Bowl and the vacation they anticipate four months from now. "They've failed to impregnate the here and now with meaning." And have failed to give credit to the "private Adams" in their midst.

Not all celebrities are fools, says the rabbi (although when a magazine called him this week and asked him to come up with a list of the 10 worst-behaved celebrities he replied it would be hard to keep it to 10). Bono of the rock group U2 is an example of a good celebrity: a devoted husband, sincere, altruistic, who uses his celebrity to highlight causes larger than himself, says Rabbi Shmuley.

Maybe, the rabbi told his old friend Roseanne Barr the other day, she and he should set up a "center for celebrity healing."

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E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com