We Don’t Have the Luxury of Not Voting
Excerpts;
It is worthwhile to leave the house and to vote, even only in order that Olmert should not get in. Not to mention that it is important that we have at least a few MKs who faithfully represent the Land of Israel, the Torah of Israel, and the Jewish People of Israel. Thank God, our camp, the Orange Camp, is a great and mighty traditional camp. If each person commits himself not to remain home on Election Day, then we will ensure that all of the candidates who are loyal to Eretz Israel will enter the Knesset, where they will constitute a force against the Left and the Arabs. They will, in fact, influence the weak and servile members of Knesset, even those in the national camp.
As the journalist David Bedein wrote in one of his articles: apathy is a tool of totalitarian democracies. We must shed this apathy and act. It is essential, in addition to voting on Election Day, that in the next two weeks, we commit ourselves to take part in the “Moving to the Right” campaign. That is, to persuade those who plan to vote to move to the Right. Everyone should volunteer for this mission according to his capabilities: some people will take a list of telephone numbers from the Moving to the Right headquarters, and spend much time in conversations with the people of Israel to persuade them. Others will stand at intersections with informational material, stickers and posters, and generate an anti-Olmert atmosphere in the street – which is extremely important, in order to circumvent the media that is mobilized for Olmert. Our movement, Women in Green, distributes the “Olmert is Dangerous for the Jews” sticker to anyone who requires them.
The Political Lessons of Purim
Excerpts;
Just before Purim, it is traditional for Jews to read as the Haftarah portion in synagogues the section of the First Book of Samuel in which King Saul is stripped of his kingdom and office.
The context is that Haman, the villain of Purim, is thought to be descended from Agag, the evil king of the Amalekites, captured by King Saul. The Biblical injunction to “remember what Amalek did to you” is considered particularly timely in proximity to Purim.
This year, it occurred to me that there are important political messages in this segment of the Book of Samuel. Just to remind you of the context, the Bible orders Jews to annihilate the Amalekites, including their animals. But it turns out that the Israelites, with the connivance of King Saul, have disobeyed. They have captured animals from the Amalekite herds and retained them, and King Saul has captured the evil king of the Amalekites, Agag, but has not slain him.
So, where are the political lessons? First, it is that people tend to misrepresent their own selfishness and grasping materialism as “compassion”; affectations and posturings of compassion are often little more than excuses for illicit selfishness. That is precisely what enraged Samuel and is denounced in such harsh terms by the words of the Bible.
Second, unjustified mercy is not only out of place, but it is among the worst crimes one can commit. Even a king who commits such a crime is considered a villain beyond redemption and beyond the ability to repent...