The Spanish public is going through difficult times. Feelings of great pain and confusion, and fears about the unpredictable future.
The last few days will forever be remembered as the days when the 'domino effect' began in the collapse of Maran's life's work: the collapse of the Shas movement.
And Shas is not just a party, Shas is a way of life!
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A stranger will not understand this.
As someone who grew up in the shadow of the revolution, as a child born in the years when the Shas movement was born, I feel that the movement accompanied me at every stage of my life: I was educated in the institutions of the 'Ma'yan Torah Education', I spent my afternoons in the activities of 'El HaMa'yan', and we traveled during our free time with the 'Bnei Chail' camps. On Chol HaMoed we traveled to pilgrimage events and the welcoming of the rabbi at Gan Saker and Beid Eliyahu.
This was our culture, this was our pride.
We grew up and were educated in Maran's way, his picture accompanied us everywhere, in the living room, at school, and at all cultural events.
His books, laws, and views were a milestone in building our personalities. At every Shabbat meal, we discuss his laws and talk about his leadership. We drank all of his lessons on satellite and radio with thirst, and we came to every revival meeting with our hearts full. It was always 'our desire to see our king.'.
Maran was not only a great arbiter and a master of Halacha. Maran was not only a great perseverer and a great tzaddik. Maran was a revolutionary leader who carried the burden of a generation on his shoulders and raised the standard of Sephardic Jewry.
Thirty years ago, he took a young and talented 24-year-old man and together with him they led the greatest social revolution in the history of the State of Israel.
They plowed the land, went down to the people, ignited the spark among the Eastern Jewish community and founded the Shas movement, established the Maayan Torah Education Network, El Maayan, Bnei Chayil, and dozens of other distant institutions and outreach organizations that restored respect to the Sephardic public.
That young man's name is Aryeh Deri, some call him the Jewish Martin Luther King, the instigator of the revolution and the leader who led the Spanish public to unprecedented achievements.
A year ago, unfortunately, we lost Maran, and this week we lost his partner in leading the revolution.
When we lost Maran, we took comfort in the life project he left behind. This week we realized that this life project was in danger of collapse.
The thing that is perhaps most regrettable of all is the realization that the only factor that led to this collapse is us.
We, the people of the Mizrahi community, for whom the Shas movement accompanied us every step of our lives, left the leader exposed and alone in the tower; we, the Sephardim, a conservative who dedicated his life to restoring our honor, trampled him with a rough foot and shattered him to pieces.
Instead of learning a lesson from the damage caused by the controversy in the previous elections, which caused our exclusion and severely damaged our way of life, we enjoy once again fanning the flames of controversy and satisfying the lust for revenge of those leading the division.
Instead of uniting and supporting the leader that Maran left us, we preferred to engage in cheap gossip and pointless slander.
What the secular legal and media persecution failed to do, the ultra-Orthodox media succeeded in doing.
What the years of exile and prison didn't do for him, the attacks from home did for him.
He broke down, he threw up his hands, he declared: I can't take it anymore.
Some laughed, some claimed it was political spin, they told everyone that once again the great political juggler in Israel was staging a special show here.
But as the hours passed and they realized that it was serious, concern took the place of cynicism and the fear of collapse began to creep in.
The Spanish public, which is now digesting the magnitude of the loss, is beginning to wake up, hoping it is not too late.
We must internalize that we must not allow Maran's life's work to collapse.
We must not be complicit in the destruction of the Third Temple!
Today, the fast of the 10th of Tevet, the day that because of gratuitous hatred the siege began that led to the destruction of the Temple and the exile of the Jewish people, we need to draw conclusions and make a decision: We will not let gratuitous hatred destroy our Third Temple!
We will not allow the collapse of Maran's life's work, which will lead us to political exile.
We all unite and join forces for the success of the campaign, because only together will we win!
