From Soldier to Soul: Yariv’s Journey to Torah and Truth

The day before his planned wedding to a non-Jewish woman, Yariv Even-Haim received a life-changing phone call. His father had suffered a heart attack. Yariv rushed back to Israel.

“I saw my father in intensive care,” he recalls. “I took a prayer book and began to pray. Looking back, it was Birkat Hamazon, Grace After Meals. That’s how far I was from Jewish observance. I didn’t even know what I was holding.”

Today, it’s hard to recognize that same young man, a model on billboards, a rising star in commercials who was once completely disconnected from Torah, faith, and tradition.

“I was born in Kiryat Gat,” Yariv begins. “At home, we had values, but nothing binding. Western ideas crept in and wiped away the good. I didn’t even know the basics of Judaism and to be honest, I didn’t care.”

Yariv served in a paratroopers unit in the IDF. The training was intense. He saw action in Lebanon and against terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. “There were times we were literally between life and death. We saw miracles but we didn’t call them that. We chalked it up to ‘my strength and my might,’” he says, referencing the phrase from Deuteronomy about misplaced pride. “At times, we’d glance heavenward, not out of faith, but out of desperation. Something inside us wanted to cling to something, anything.”

In 1994, after being discharged from the army, Yariv was looking for his next challenge. One day, he met photographer Danny Miller, who cast him in the Israeli film Siren’s Song. That opened the door to a glamorous world. He starred in commercials for major brands like Maccabi, Kroker, and Goldstar Beer. “I never dreamed of being in the media,” he says. “But suddenly my face was everywhere, ads, billboards. It all happened so fast.”

He later worked across Europe, in Switzerland, Austria, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. By the time he returned to Israel in 1995, Yariv was fully immersed in a materialistic lifestyle. “I was spiritually empty. I started studying alternative medicine and new-age philosophies, but nothing really touched my soul. I was restless.”

That spiritual hunger eventually led him to the U.S. He traveled through Chicago, Houston, and Florida. In one beach town during Nisan, the Hebrew month of Passover, he found himself sitting in a restaurant eating bread and non-kosher meat on the Seder night.

“I remember thinking this can’t be Judaism. But I had no idea what it actually was. I had nothing to compare it to.”

Yariv was successful in America. He made good money and thought he had it all. He even planned to marry a non-Jewish woman so he could stay there permanently. But Hashem had other plans.

At four in the morning, the day before the wedding, the phone rang. It was his aunt Miri. “I told her, ‘Let’s talk tomorrow.’ She said, ‘Yariv, your father had a heart attack. You need to come now.’”

Yariv threw some money and papers into a bag and boarded the first plane home. “My strength and might shattered in an instant. I suddenly felt how much is hidden from us, how little we control. I left everything behind and flew home with my heart wide open.”

During a stopover, Yariv looked for a synagogue for the first time in his life. “It was Shabbat morning. I found one with mixed seating. I didn’t realize it was Reform, but I felt it wasn’t the real thing.”

On the plane, he cried out from his heart. “From the depths I called to You, Hashem,” he says, quoting Tehillim (Psalms). He made a deal with G-d: “If my father recovers, and I come to understand that You’re real, I’m with You, no shortcuts, no games.”

When he landed in Israel, his emotions were all over the place, confused, tired, searching. He picked up a prayer book and began to reconnect. Baruch Hashem, his father recovered. “I knew I had to keep my word,” Yariv says. “In our family, a promise is a promise. Besides, the emptiness I felt from years of living for pleasure had caught up with me.”

He began asking questions and waiting for the right moment to truly begin seeking answers.

One day in 1997, he was walking across the Halacha Bridge in Tel Aviv when a Jew named Ezra Ravia asked him to complete a minyan (quorum for prayer). Yariv entered the synagogue, nervous and unsure what to do. Ezra noticed he lived nearby and invited him to join for Kiddush the next Shabbat.

“I saw how he blessed his children, how they sang zemirot (Shabbat songs), how they spoke words of Torah at the table. I was deeply moved.”

During the meal, Ezra asked him, “Do you really believe this world was created by some random explosion?” Yariv said he wasn’t sure, but he was open to hearing scientific explanations. Ezra invited him to a class in the neighborhood to learn more.

Yariv soon met Rabbi David Akuka, a gentle and thoughtful teacher. “He didn’t try to prove G-d’s existence or argue with me. Instead, we jumped right into learning Gemara. The topic was deep and full of wisdom. I felt drawn in, like something had woken up inside me.”

Still, Yariv needed more clarity. He was invited to spend Shabbat at Rabbi Reuven Elbaz’s yeshiva in Jerusalem. “Meeting Rabbi Elbaz was like an earthquake,” he says. “His presence, his strength, it was something special. And the young men there? They were brilliant, many from elite army units. It shattered my stereotypes. The media doesn’t even begin to reflect the depth and beauty of Torah life.”

He attended a lecture about the mesorah, the unbroken chain of Torah passed down from generation to generation. “It hit me that Mount Sinai wasn’t just some ancient story. It’s a living tradition that connects us directly to our ancestors.”

With Rabbi Elbaz’s guidance, Yariv decided to stay. It wasn’t easy going from restaurants and luxury to sharing a small room with four guys but something greater held him. “The spirituality, the kindness, it wrapped around me. I started asking deeper questions, meeting with scientists and rabbis. Slowly, all the doubts I had began to melt away.”

A week at the yeshiva turned into two, then a month, and then... his life.

“My vision became clear. I didn’t want to build my future on the emptiness I had known. The Tel Aviv lifestyle didn’t reflect the family life I dreamed of. I wanted to marry a modest, Torah-loving woman and build a true Jewish home.”

That dream came true. Yariv married a Jewish woman k’dat Moshe v’Yisrael, according to the law of Moses and Israel and they built their home in Jerusalem, close to his rabbi.

Over time, Yariv also trained to become a mohel (a ritual circumciser). He had the great privilege of performing the brit milah (circumcision) for both of his sons. Today, after more than 11 years in yeshiva, he continues learning each morning, and the rest of his day is filled with family and speaking to others across Israel, sharing his story of return, resilience, and faith.