And that's a summary of the elections so far: In the first week, they were discussing the question of why they were going to the elections at all and why the government fell. Then Livni shook up the system when she united with Herzog and then when she cursed the "state of the nation.".
Eli Yishai resigned and founded a party, then Aryeh Deri resigned from his party and returned. Then there were primaries. A lot of preoccupation with who is high and who is low, who is in and who is out.
Then the season of armor and courtship began: Linor Abergil, Eli Ohana, Yinon Magal, Benny Begin. They also spent a whole week discussing how Naftali Bennett, the young officer, spoke on the radio during the incident in Kfar Kana 20 years ago, and another week about Netanyahu insisting on moving to the front row at the rally in Paris.
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And in the background, all the time, the discussion about the expected speech at Congress and the discussion about the V15 organization's money.
Sometime in the middle, the video season began. Bennett is a hipster, Meretz is dancing at a wedding, Bibi is playing that kindergarten teacher. Another week, they were dealing with the great corruption scandal in Israel, Beitenu, and of course, Sarah's recycled bottles and her husband's bottle speech.
Later, Netanyahu confronted the media and then the academy, Lieberman attacked Ya'alon, Kahlon attacked Lapid, and this week, they also began discussing a televised debate.
This is an interesting, bouncy list of topics, sometimes important, sometimes not.
But what are these elections actually about?
And following up on the question of what the elections are about, another simple question: If Netanyahu is so bad, why doesn't anyone commit to not sitting with him?
I saw the party leaders come up to speak this week, one after the other, at the annual conference of the Hotel Association. It's very easy to bring politicians to these events these days. They're looking for a platform.
Yaakov Litzman spoke there and did not commit to whom he would recommend, nor did Avigdor Lieberman (who, as his number of mandates decreases, speaks with more self-confidence), nor even Livni and Herzog. The latter two spoke at length at the conference and explained how bad the situation was, but did not for a moment rule out a coalition with the very person who, they claimed, had actually created this bad situation.
Netanyahu's announcement that he would not turn to the Zionist camp to form a coalition did not even elicit a similar commitment from them along the lines of "We will not join you either.".
Kahlon, of course, does not provide such a statement, and neither does Lapid, who sharply attacks Netanyahu, who is unable to say, "I will not sit with him." It is customary to say that democracy, despite all its shortcomings, is the least bad system of government.
Do the party leaders actually agree that Netanyahu, despite all his flaws, is the least bad prime minister? And if not, why don't they say so?
This week marked National Safer Internet Week. It wasn't too noticeable, except for a few lessons in some schools. Sometimes it seems like the eternal debates between left and right are a marginal issue compared to the fact that we are all, including our children, becoming robots. Enslaved by constant updates, exposed to problematic and questionable content, unable to have a human conversation or concentrate on a single task.
In religious Zionism, this has recently become one of the hottest educational topics.
A few years too late, they realized that a smartphone for every child would lead them less to the writings of Rabbi Kook and more to Lady Gaga videos. A new and controversial campaign published by the Rimon Internet company depicts a child who is half-good-child-Bnei Akiva, and with the cell phone — half-punk.
The conclusion: Put some kind of block on your child's device, and also download an app to limit browsing hours.
Rabbi Amichai Gordin, an educator from the liberal stream, recently said pointed things about the subject to the newspaper "Motzash": "It's not popular nor enlightened, but the facts speak for themselves. I've heard enough learned explanations about education and self-responsibility for youth. It doesn't work. We need to face reality. Youth are not supposed to have devices that are open to the Internet.
""They don't have the tools to deal with the temptations and difficulties. You can't compare a mobile device to a computer. I think we're being unfair to our children. I sound old-fashioned and archaic, but that's the reality. I'm not against smartphones any more than I'm against cars, but I won't let my child drive before the age of 17, even if all the neighbors let their children drive from the age of 14." .
""It's true, it's hard to explain to a child why he's the only one in his class without a sophisticated device (and by the way, he's not), but we'll do it for him and take care of him.".
It seems that this important issue should concern all sectors, not just religious parents. Rabbi Yona Goodman, former secretary general of Bnei Akiva, claims that the matter should have been brought to light long ago: "We forgot to teach youth to use cell phones and not to get addicted to them. Our children know that inner heroism is required on the battlefield. It's time to teach them that heroism is also required of all of us in managing our leisure time.".
This week, 29 years ago, Natan Sharansky was released from a Russian prison. A prisoner of Zion who became a global symbol is today the chairman of the Jewish Agency. Dr. Yael Ziegler, a Bible lecturer, recently sent me an email that was also sent to her family in the United States: "This morning I was at a bakery in Jerusalem and noticed that Natan Sharansky was standing in front of me in line. I gathered courage and told him that not long ago I quoted from his book 'I Will Not Fear Evil' in my class, when I taught the Book of Psalms.
""I told them that the students first heard how he kept a small book of Psalms in a Soviet prison, and how he fought the prison authorities for this right. Sharansky smiled, put his hand in his shirt pocket, and took out a small book of Psalms.
""I was shocked and asked: What? You carry this booklet with you everywhere you go? And he replied with a smile: To be honest, the book carries me. It's unbelievable how many people can stand in line before you at a bakery in Israel.".
This week's parashah, the "Mishpatim" parashah, is, as its name suggests, full of laws, rules, and statutes. 53 commandments (out of 613 in the entire Torah) appear in it. In the previous parashah, we were at Mount Sinai, at the giving of the Torah, but immediately after these extraordinary moments, this week's begins a long list of instructions. The parashah deals with the laws of bribery, the Shabbat of Loss, kashrut, Shabbat, holidays, attitudes toward violence, tort law, false testimony, and so on.
Many commentators explain it this way: There is no point in exalted experiences like the giving of the Torah and in grand, sublime talk about values — without putting it, after all, into actual life. The parasha takes the enthusiasm of Mount Sinai and breaks it down to the smallest, obligatory acts of everyday life.
Jewish status: "False speech is far away... and you shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the wise and distorts the words of the righteous.".
• The column is published in Yedioth Ahronoth.'
