Eviatar Banai: "The Torah is a Fountain of Life. I'm in Love with It"

"All my life I have been running away from pain. My entire life has been filled with pain, proportionally. The more I ran, the more the pain grew," says artist Eviatar Banai, 48, in his monologue in '7 Nights.' "A person on the run cannot notice, cannot breathe. A person on the run cannot love. Six years ago, when Meir, of blessed memory, my brother, got sick, something inside me stopped. I had no strength left to flee. It was frightening. I thought if I confronted my pain, my self-hatred, my shame and guilt, my fear, the truth, I would be swallowed by them. I would lose everything I had built. Career. Family. Life of Torah. Relationship. Livelihood. That is not what happened. Losing youth. Agreeing to let go of what was and is no more."

"I grew up in Omer near Be'er Sheva," Banai continues. "A father who is a judge and a mother who is a high school principal. Very busy parents who are also nurturing and pampering. Orna is 6 years older than me. Efrat by 10, Meir by 13. I grew up quite alone. A house key on a green rubber chain. Coming home from school and raising the shade in the living room. Samantha Fox's 'Touch Me' was my consolation and closeness. A simmering boredom in my gut. Anxiety and emptiness were part of me from a young age. I learned to tell my story through these eyes. My self-definition. My eyes are used to seeing what is missing."

The singer notes the possible addictions present in life: "Cipralex. Cigarettes. Alcohol. Food. Phones. Careers. News. Internet. Reality TV. Destructive relationships. Audience. These can all be forms of addiction." He adds that "in a certain sense, the stage can be one of my uses. To inject love and a feeling of grandeur and value. To fill the emptiness inside with something from outside. It doesn't hold. It enlarges the void. If I hate myself, it's impossible to receive love from outside. It only creates dissonance and tension. There are addictions I have to completely stop. I don't touch alcohol or cigarettes. I have a kosher phone so I don't wander the internet, and I don't eat sweets. These, I must stop, period. Stage and performances are the good and important places I have in my life. I don't want to stop them anymore. On the contrary. There were years I didn't love them because of self-hatred and guilt, because of a sense of use and addiction. Because of dependence on the audience's love. I understand more and more that the stage and music are my gift."

Banai continues to write about faith in Hashem:"I need Hashem. Loving, present, forgiving, listening, patient. Happy with the little good I do. I love the Torah so much. It is a fountain of life. I'm in love with it. The void in my stomach cannot be filled by external love. My connection with Hashem and the Torah, a life clean of use, doesn't erase the void in my stomach. But like a guitar, the void becomes a resonance box and I am born there. From there I play."

Banai states that in his opinion, the deepest journey in life is marriage: "Everything starts there and everything ends up there. A physical and emotional connection and a unity of souls. Marriage is the height of pleasure, but to achieve that, you have to go through a lot. Ambivalence has been my lot for most of my life. Wanting then not wanting, feeling then not feeling. And then suddenly a wonderful closeness and a flowing heart. And again and again, alienation and closeness."

"It's a gate I stood before for years until I could enter it and choose my one and only wife. Another great gate to pass through is the bravery to let go of youth. To agree to wrinkles, a belly, and a new jawline. Every so often, my marriage faced a gate. When we managed to pass through it, we discovered new worlds. I am learning to be a partner. Learning to love. Not giving up on myself, not giving out of appeasement or manipulation. Not being a child who needs a mother. Standing with backbone. Learning to step out of myself, to truly see her. That her good is what I seek, not just my own good."

"I wish to learn to tell her what I need and not expect her to understand on her own. I want to know how I feel. Many times, I don't even know how I feel, and my emotions secretly control me. There is something higher than my changing emotions. There is choice, covenant, where inner and physical pleasure connect. That is love. And that is the greatest gift there is in life. And if Hashem wills it, my wife and I will sit on a bench in the garden and the grandchildren will play around us. This is what I dream of," Banai concludes.

Eviatar Banai in a fascinating conversation with Rabbi Uri Zohar and Rabbi Dan Tiomkin. Watch: