Shari Arison, Israel's Wealthiest Woman, Says She Can See the Future. Really.

Arison says she was not surprised by the sort of "there she goes again" reception by local media. She's sensitive to the fact that some people perceive her spiritual claims and her identity as a businesswoman as eye-rollingly opposite. But she counters that it doesn't take a rabbi to talk about spiritual matters. And anyone who, after the last couple of years, wants to leave the economy to economists and traditional bankers should think twice, she says.

"Here I am -- a woman, a businesswoman -- coming out with ideas that it is okay for a rabbi to have, or it is okay for a spiritual leader to have or an astrologist to have or whoever," Arison says, acknowledging that, for many people, the idea of a banker with a spiritual gift "is scary."

"And it is a shame because it should be quite the opposite. They were not scared with all the mortgage investments . . . and those were very rational business people, who all they cared about was profit, and look what happened. And here comes someone who says they want things to be vision-based, with values, with caring, with a sense of humanity, and people are scared. Okay."

The philanthropies Arison has launched over the past several years get downright tantric -- all tiny ripples she hopes will build into a planet-changing wave.

Here is how the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, a 15-year-old undergraduate and research university, describes the Shari Arison Awareness Communication Center, which she endowed in 2006: "The center will focus on research on the importance of the individual's inner balance as an engine for self-development and self-achievement. It shall also research how humanity can function in an increasingly technological world in the future."

For "true world peace, among all people, each one of us has to reach their own individual peace," Arison says in a video introduction to Essence of Life, which sponsors workshops and a Web site aimed at "bringing about a major shift in collective consciousness." She hopes that her Good Deeds Day initiative, which is up to 20,000 participants after its first few years, can go global with its message of setting aside one day a year to volunteer at a charity, paint a school or even just carry the groceries for a neighbor.

At the same time, it's not clear that her visions and her call for values-based capitalism have had much influence at Bank Hapoalim. Its recent performance has looked like that of many other financial institutions: losses on mortgage-backed securities, allegations of insider trading in a subsidiary, controversy over bonuses and, in the end, intervention by regulators.

When the Bank of Israel pushed for the ouster of Hapoalim Chairman Dan Danker, Arison resisted (unsuccessfully). As she told the newspaper Haaretz, the problems were caused by "a collapse in values" around the world, and that it was "unfair to hang only Danny."

Likewise, it's not clear how her professed values have influenced her construction company, Shikun & Binui. It's true that the company is planning a move to fully sustainable building practices, using supplies that are produced in more environmentally friendly ways and making sure that its scraps and waste are recycled -- a policy Arison says will ultimately be more profitable and consistent with how she wants her companies run. But it's an open question whether her decision to keep the firm, as it went from losses to renewed profits several years ago, was prompted by a "message from above" -- as she has told the media -- or a message from then-chief executive Uri Shani, as explained in local financial reports at the time.

Arison recently invested $100 million to set up a water company, Miya, whose name is from a Hebrew word for God and whose mission goes to one of Arison's chief worries, that water and other resource shortages will increase conflict around the world. It's a high aim, but the business is strictly for-profit, and the function pretty basic -- fixing leaky pipes and installing pressure gauges and other monitors so that big water systems in aging cities don't spill half their product.

Plumbers have a place in heaven, too.

And she has not run willy-nilly into what would seem like a peacemaking Israeli capitalist's sweet spot -- investments in the Palestinian territories or joint ventures with Israeli Arabs.