I wanted to share with you what I and many others like me experienced last Tuesday on Election Day:
I arrive at the main Jerusalem headquarters at Har Hotzvim at noon and see dozens of cars decorated with large Gimmel signs coming and going — to transport as many voters as possible to the polls, helping those who find it difficult to get there themselves, since every single vote counts. Many dozens of people are swarming around the entrance to the building, hoping for the privilege of helping the cause, as was urged by the rabbonim.
At 12:20 the doors are officially opened to the election-day volunteers. I enter and see dozens of people sitting and making phone calls to urge citizens to go to the polls, while other volunteers are handing out flyers listing the potential UTJ voters and their vital statistics, down to every detail.
Young folks alongside adults, Lithuanians alongside Chassidim, Ashkenazim and Sephardim — all bnei Torah, yeshiva students, avreichim, talmidei chachomim and lecturers and more. Clear proof of this is evidenced during the ten minute break for updates on the election results so far, where many of the volunteers open up a gemara or other seforim and begin studying. And that's not all. On the right side of the room is a huge auditorium with hundreds of energetic activists sitting in front of huge printouts posted on the walls with small squares which bear the names of potential voters and their full details, including profession. When someone has voted one of the volunteers goes over and crosses out his name. Everything is running smoothly at top efficiency in an atmosphere of commendable alacrity for this mitzvah in a united purpose to bring in as many votes as possible.
Let no one remain home in face of the `fire raging in the town', because every vote determines, each one is influential, and the rulings of our Torah leadership must be obeyed. All in all, this is the opportunity for a tremendous Kiddush Hashem.
People who came from the outside were unable to fathom how hundreds of people could be sitting at their post for ten hours straight without receiving a penny, all of them volunteers propelled by a sense of duty, that of heeding the call of their rabbonim.
