I began admiring Uri Zohar back in my school days, when the legendary Nahal band would occasionally come to perform at the YMCA hall in Jerusalem, and it couldn't have been funnier back then.
The Nahal Band of Uri Zohar's time was the best military band of all time, and the most excellent of all time, thanks in no small part to Uri's extraordinary personality.
Imagine, an entire nation without television, with one radio station, that admires and knows by heart the band's songs and the sketches in which Zohar starred.
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And I remember sitting there in the hall, floating in imagination and dreaming dreams, that maybe one day I would be one of the actors in the troupe. And "sometimes dreams come true," and I arrived at the Nahal troupe, Uri was no longer there but his name hung like a white cloud from the world of legend in the troupe's sky.
They talked about him all the time, and the veterans, the guys from his class who were still with him, never stopped saying, at every new sketch that we newcomers were assigned, "Oh, if only Uri were here, how much funnier this sketch would be." In one of the troupe's shows, he returned as a director, and the newcomers and I were among them, afraid to talk to him, the veterans looked at him as if he were a "Rebbe.".
During rehearsals for the show, my father passed away and the sky fell on me, and I didn't want to return to the Nahal band anymore, because I didn't have the strength, desire, and ability to sing, and certainly not to be funny in the sketches. I wanted to stay in Jerusalem, to shut myself away, not to leave the house, to be alone with myself, with my father.
He came to the shiva in Jerusalem and sat with me and felt sorry for me, and I remember telling him that I was as sad as a moonless night, how will I ever laugh again?
And he talked and talked and I cried and cried, and with the sensible words of a wise man that I only understood years later, he managed to get me back into the band.
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And once when I returned to the band from Jerusalem on one of the vacations, I brought with me a prayer book of my father's that was very dear to me, and I brought it to him as a token of gratitude for insisting on my return to the band and to life and simply saving me from endless sorrow.
He was then standing near the stage surrounded by all the members of the band, and I handed him my father's siddur. He looked at the siddur and asked: "What is this?""
I tell him: "A prayer book.".
And he asks me: "What do we do with this?""
I said: "If you want, we pray sometimes.".
""What does this say?" he asked, to the stifled laughter of all the band members around us, and I replied: "It has three prayers, morning, evening and evening prayers.".
""And I have to pray with this book?" he asked, and I stood embarrassed in front of a group that was stopping itself from laughing out loud and I almost cried, because the siddur was my father's.
So I told him: "No need, don't take it," so he said, "Okay, okay, let's see what we do with it.".
The wonders of God's ways I tell you about a rabbi named Uri Zohar who once asked me a long time ago, in another incarnation of his life, about a prayer book: "What is this thing?""
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He directed us in the military band and made us laugh and go crazy, and it was hard not to admire him, not to love him, not to be fascinated by his character.
Uri was born a "guru", Uri was born to be a man that people follow. The only one in the world who was able to stand alone on the stage of the Hall of Culture with a guitar when he didn't know how to play it, and hold an audience for long minutes and make the audience choke with laughter, without saying anything, just nonsense that comes to his mind at that moment. There was no one like him, nor will there ever be.
Years later, he was my director in the film 'Every Bastard Is King,' and he emerged there as an incomparably talented director with senses that were a gift from God. Uri was a genius, if he had only continued directing films, I have no doubt he would have become one of the finest directors in the world.
I had a hard time with him in the film, because he was one of those impatient directors who wanted an immediate result, he disliked actors who wanted to hesitate and think about the character "where it came from and where it's going." He was spontaneous, precise and razor-sharp, so he would demonstrate exactly what he wanted his actors to play in front of the camera.
And when he would demonstrate, it was impossible to play after him, because the whole team would lie on the floor and die of laughter. Now go play your part after Uri Zohar demonstrated to you what you need to do.
Not easy, difficult, embarrassing, impossible.
And we had some difficult days on the film because of that, and some difficult things we said to each other, in front of a large crew wondering and amazed at how we were throwing things at each other like that.
I wrote the story of the unpleasant relationship in the film Between Us and Him in my autobiography, and among other things, I talked about Sibley and my feeling of being directed by Uri Zohar.
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About a year ago, I received a phone call late at night, and Uri Zohar introduced himself, after we hadn't spoken for several decades, and he said to me this: "Hello, listen! My wife is reading your book now, I'm not! Because I only read holy books, it's a waste of my time, you understand, and my wife tells me that I must ask you for forgiveness and pardon, that's what she says, so here I am asking for forgiveness.".
For a moment I thought it was some impersonator who wanted to make fun of me, but there was no mistaking the voice of someone I had admired all my life, so I said: 'Are you kidding now?''
And he answered me: "No, really not, I ask your forgiveness and pardon, please forgive me.".
""A thousand" years have passed since the film, and I was shocked, I admit.
So I told him: "I forgive okay," because that's what came out of my mouth and I wanted to tell him then how touched I was by his character, and I choked up in my throat, and I loved him in that moment, and I thanked him in my heart, for who he is and who I am because of him, and I'm so sorry now that I won't be able to call him anymore, at some late hour of the night, an hour of desire, to remind him of those screams that I screamed out of mental distress and ask him from the bottom of my heart for forgiveness, in the hope that he will forgive.
• From the program of singer and Israel Prize laureate Yehoram Gaon on Galei Tzahal
