Loose Lips Sink Ships

 

It’s been a week since the Israeli elections and it’s time to move forward. In general, virtually all of the religious Jews in Eretz Yisrael are pleased with the results. As it stands, all of us won.

In my previous post, I took exception to the way certain prominent members of the Degel HaTorah camp were carrying on. I called it totally inappropriate for the Torah elite and that I cannot join forces with this kind of conduct, so I needed to distance myself from it. I wrote that I am going to vote for Shas, and I did (as did my eishes chayil).

The only commenter I had on the last post enlightened me that, just a few months earlier, the leaders of Shas also publicly expressed the Lashon Hara or Motzi Shem Ra – depending on one’s hashkafa – that I was protesting against. I responded that I didn’t know this, and I can’t say for certain what I would have done if I had. It seems like in this country there is always some reason to hold a grudge against everyone.

Now that the elections are over, and I can truly hope that this will bring us to a stable and rational government that will endure an entire term, and that there won’t be another election anytime soon, I hope we can put our grudges aside.

I don’t regret what I posted and don’t retract what I posted, but since, whether rightly or wrongly, it ultimately tarnishes the image of Degel HaTorah and the Yeshiva world and at least one prominent Rosh Yeshiva, it is not worth keeping up.

Despite the fact that I “abandoned ship” on Degel HaTorah for this election, I am very happy for the seven seats they got and would have been even happier to see them get an eighth seat, which they almost did.

I read in one report that they lost that eighth seat by a mere 990 votes. Just a bit less than 1000. As I wrote, they certainly lost at least two of those votes from me and perhaps some other members of my immediate family. I think I can state that I am not the only person who got turned off and alienated from the harsh negative advertising of the Rosh Yeshiva, Shlita. Plus, I always stumble upon people who have other reasons to hold grudges. Sometimes those other reasons are borderline and then something like this just nails the coffin.

The point I am trying to make is that, aside from Torah guidance and inspiration from our leaders and Roshei Yeshiva, we also like to see wisdom, foresight, and good “business acumen”. Straight thinking and common sense.

So, the question looms, who was this Rosh Yeshiva addressing and what was he trying to accomplish? It seems that he thought he was talking to the Yeshiva students who have been won over by Otzma’s political message and had decided to vote for them. He was trying to win them back.

How? By "upgrading" a safek lahv to a safek Kares? By employing religious scare tactics about losing olam haba just because one votes for Otzma?

How many of those people fell for that? How many changed their minds? How many even heard what he said?

Ironically, I think that those who were linked to the news media outlets and heard there what he said, were mostly disillusioned from these tactics. I know I was, and I can’t be the only one.

All told, I don’t think he gained anyone back and he certainly alienated quite a number of those who otherwise would have been loyal to Gimmel.

How many voters was it? Two? Ten? 100? 990? More?

We’ll never know, but if anything, this outburst may have cost UTJ their eighth seat. Only 990 votes. If not all of that, it certainly contributed to this loss.

And if the entire right-wing majority would have been standing on just one seat, and didn’t make it because of the 990 votes, what a disaster!

I don’t even want to think of it.

I am removing my previous post, but I meant what I wrote. There are lessons to be learned here. And some of these lessons need to be learned even by Gedolei Yisrael.

Sinas chinam will ruin us and must be avoided at all costs. Those who think they’ll gain from it will be the biggest losers, and they can sink the entire ship along with them.

כלנו בני איש אחד נחנו, כנים אנחנו

As Elon Musk said, “Let that sink in”…

...before we’re all sunk.