You have gone, a friend, our friend • Aryeh Erlich bids farewell to Rabbi Uri Zohar, zt"l

June Green
2 June 2022   
Photo: 
Courtesy of the photographer

He lived in a small apartment, in the Matersdorf neighborhood of Jerusalem, a little over 20 meters in size.

A few months ago, I went to visit him at his house, I wanted an interview. I entered the narrow room and saw him sitting on something that was half bed, half sofa, on which he sat and studied, ate and slept.

I asked him - Rabbi Uri Zohar, why live in such Spartan conditions? Why such extreme modesty?

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And he just smiled his familiar, mischievous smile and said: "This is the most comfortable house there is... In a normal house you need a compass and a map. Here the living room, kitchen and bedroom are one, five-star comfortable conditions.".

Then he told me: I am preparing for the day I reach the grave.

Today, Uri Zohar, the creator, director, actor, the man who made us laugh and moved us and for more than forty years strengthened us and gave us a balance between the sacred and the mundane, between the transient and the eternal, between the temporal and the infinite - said goodbye to the land of the living and ascended to the yeshiva of Ma'ale.

He has completed a long journey. A journey that lasted 86 years.

And now, as Arik Einstein, his beloved and loving father-in-law, said in the famous song: "You have gone, friend, you have gone, Uri Zohar, the friend of us all.".

In the 1970s, it disappeared from Israeli society. Now it's also disappearing from ultra-Orthodox society.

Anyone who remembers his performances during his years as the biggest star of Israeli society remembers the question that opened every performance: "Am I beautiful?""

Now, all of Israeli society says to him: You are all beautiful, Rabbi Uri Zohar, you are all beautiful and there is no flaw in you.

• Aryeh Erlich is the editor of 'Mishpacha' magazine and the host of the program 'Alitov and Erlich' on Channel 2.'


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