1
The old political blocs have broken apart. The extreme Right
is worth 8 Knesset seats while the extreme Left is worth 10.
The Likud, Labor, Central Party, and Shinui are all in the
middle. You can watch the battlefield switching suddenly,
with soldiers shifting from the Right to the Left and back
again. It is conceivable that Arik Sharon will even agree to
support a Palestinian state, while Ehud Barak will oppose it.
At the end you will no doubt see them forming new lines,
altogether mixed up. No more Right and Left, but top and
bottom.
On one side will be those who want to see the country run
according to Jewish values, while on the other side you will
see those who want Israel to be a "generic" country -- like
all others. All those who have been captivated by the
Rightists' charm will then suddenly understand that anti-
religious extreme Rightists, such as Tommy Lapid, are even
more dangerous for Judaism than Leftists. They have a fast
trigger finger. Yesterday you heard Tommy say that he wants
to place ten booby-trapped cars in a Palestinian refugee
camp, and tomorrow you will hear where else he wants to put
cars like that.
2
You surely have at some time asked yourselves about the
contribution of individuals in changing history. Without a
man called Bogdan Khmelnitsky, would cruel pogroms have been
carried out on European Jewry in the middle of the
seventeenth century? Without Vladimir Lenin, would the
Communist ideology have materialized at all? Without Mikhail
Gorbachev, who introduced the glasnost policy in the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, would there have been
even a slight hope for Communism to break down?
We must ask ourselves all of these questions in order to
answer the question whether in Eretz Yisroel, which is after
all a democracy, such a grave danger could emerge to the
lives of chareidi Jews, just because they are Torah-
observant, without Tommy Lapid? Could any other meisis
who is not called Tommy Lapid give a hechsher and
legalization to such overt racism and instigation against
Jews?
Ask yourselves what would have happened if Avrohom Poraz had
led Shinui using the same ideological message and
declarations. In such a case, would Shinui have received even
two thousand votes? The answer to this question answers the
previous questions too. In other words, we must make every
legal effort to remove this "new Kahane," Tommy Lapid, from
politics before, chas vesholom, there is a second
Holocaust. I again emphasize, every legal effort.
3
On Election Day I served as an observer for the United Torah
Jewry Party in the Gan Chaim cooperative settlement. The
chairman of the polling committee was a member of Barak's One
Israel Party. He began talking to me, of course, about
chareidi draft dodgers. I agreed with him that one should not
dodge his obligations, but I argued that those who do not
serve the country by studying Torah are the real dodgers. The
result was that instead of my needing to justify why
chareidim do not go to the army, he had to exert himself to
explain why his people are not studying Torah and fulfilling
mitzvos. Despite this being an argument, the man seemed to
like the topic, and when there were no voters around he sat
himself near me with his two assistants, in the area
allocated for observers.
A considerable discussion evolved, around the difference
between being a Jew and an Israeli, including questions such
as "Why are we here?" and "What significance does our life
have?" From the argument's content I learned that there is a
thirst among the Leftists, especially a thirst to find
significance in life. When you talk to them about this topic
they take an interest in it, they ask questions and want to
know more.
Contact between kibbutzniks and chareidim will
eventually cause an enormous revolution, one that you will
some day hear about. Suddenly these kibbutz members
had a chance to see close-up a chareidi. Believe me, that was
the first time they had been so close to a chareidi. Such
contacts came about in more than a hundred polls on
kibbutzim. The next stage will be Shabbosim on
kibbutzim and Shabbosim in Bnei Brak. You were a
little worried about supervision of our polls by
kibbutzniks? Look how HaKodosh Boruch Hu turns
each thing around so it will be beneficial.
4
Almost everyone who pushed hard for early elections found
himself outside the Knesset. This teaches us an important
lesson: Never believe the good things people say about you.
For security's sake, distance yourself a little from what
your friends tell you. You must realize that all they mean to
do is to make you feel good. Don't believe your ego. Develop
within yourself an anti-ego program. Remember you are only
flesh and blood. Cultivate, along with your self-confidence,
the capability to see a balanced picture of yourself. You
must visualize your weaknesses and especially your mortality.
For additional details please contact: Avigdor Kahalani,
Benny Begin, Itzik Mordechai, Chanan Porat, Alex Lubotzky,
Roni Milo, Dan Meridor and other proud politicians who
thought they were about to conquer the whole world.
These principles are not only true in politics. They also
pertain to abandoning any paying job and still more to
breaking up a family unit. We must take into consideration
the other scenario, not the one facing you. We must primarily
try to reduce our self-image just a bit. This always helps,
even for a person who is really worth something. When you
want to get a raise by the usual threat of "If not, I will
quit," always, always remember that the answer might easily
be "So quit!" Caution and modesty contribute to stability in
life. In short, even if you are talented, successful, and
popular, you should make sure to pound into your skull daily
that you are not the biggest bargain in the world!
5
The resignation of Binyamin Netanyahu and Benny Begin after
their failure in the elections has brought a new and
constructive standard to Israeli politics and Israeli society
in general. Don't continue stubbornly holding on to your
previous position. Don't be pitiable and pathetic. Go when
the times comes and don't cause embarrassment for yourself,
your friends, and your party.
The truth is that many would do the same, but they have an
astonishingly simple problem. They don't have a livelihood.
Many politicians have no other qualifications for anything
else besides politics. If they give up politics they will be
unemployed. They will be utterly devastated if they leave
politics.
It would be best if only those who have somewhere else to go
if they leave politics to engage in it in the first place. If
not, it could happen that some people will make certain
decisions only so they will not lose their livelihood, and as
a result lose their self-respect, and so embarrass those they
are representing and their own families. Actually this very
thing happens all the time. It would be appropriate for only
those who don't have any problem with forsaking politics to
get mixed up in it.
6
There is a question that bothers many people: Why does the
United Torah Judaism (UTJ) list grow so slowly? Why does it
not grow so fast as other parties? I can answer that question
with a story my friend, a Gerrer Chossid and a shrewd
businessman, once told me.
"In the eighties, when the stock market in Israel was soaring
by tens of percent daily, and sometimes even hundreds of
percent, I went over to my father and told him: `Today I made
in the stock market more than you made in your whole
life.'
"My father was not moved. He raised his eyes from the
gemora and answered: `Don't tell me about your moments
of happiness, so that later you will not have to tell me
about your mourning. The difference between you and me is
that the salary I received during my life was mine,
and therefore the money remained mine. But you . . ..'
"Two months later the stock market plummeted. I naturally did
not tell my father about my losses, but ever since then I
prefer money that is really mine," concluded the
businessman.
Those five Knesset seats belong to us and only to us. They
are entirely ours. That is the whole story.
