""Long live the President, long live the State of Israel.".
With these solemn words, one of the most difficult and exhausting election campaigns we have known since the founding of the state ended, a long and arduous race, marked by mutual slander, the hiring of private investigators, and the explosion of corruption scandals one after another, as if it were a professional chess game, in which the main player cleverly defeats his competitors, step by step, on the way to victory.
""The president-elect will have to work hard to restore respect to the institution of the presidency," the commentators said. Most of the candidates were slandered during the race and were forced in a humiliating situation to reveal their wealth and power to the people of Israel, just to prove that they were indeed clean-handed and did not exploit their power to accumulate power or enrich themselves at the expense of the public.
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""This was one of the lowest moments of 'Zionism,'" said a senior broadcaster on one of the Haredi radio's opinion programs yesterday. "Secular culture was revealed in its full nakedness, with the candidates sparing no means to discredit their opponent on the way to victory.".
For some reason, it reminded me of a similar campaign that took place here just recently: "The Race for the Chief Rabbinate," the same campaign, the same slander, just under different names.
Even in the race for the rabbinate, the candidates' associates used all the means at their disposal, closing deals, police investigations, and defaming the other candidates.
It was a battle over the "image of the rabbinate," which lowered the status of the rabbinate and brought its image to an unprecedented low. But even there, in war as in war, all types of weapons are used to eliminate the enemy.
And it's not just the presidential and rabbinical election campaigns that were accompanied by harsh tones. In every campaign with more than one candidate, the parties are not content with extolling their virtues, but must trample the opposing candidate with personal and public slander in order to win the votes of the voters.
We saw this in the municipal elections and we also saw it in the Knesset elections.
All means were prepared to reach the destination.
Stop the drift
Slander has become part of Israeli election culture, emotions provide adrenaline for field activists, and at the end of each campaign the candidate relaxes in his chair, while leaving behind a divided and divided public and a territory scorched by wars.
At the end of every campaign, there is talk of a new low, but for some reason there is no rush to draw the lessons and draw conclusions. If we don't stop the downward drift, the next election campaign will look nothing less than a corrupt Western in the Wild West.
We, the community of Torah and mitzvot observant people, who educate our children to respect others, must repeat and memorize the saying of Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk: "Rather, let it be in our hearts that we see each other's virtues and not their shortcomings." At every step, at every crossroads or election campaign, we must focus on the virtues of the candidates and not their shortcomings, on loving our neighbors and not their hatred.
We cannot educate our children to respect others if we look down on all those people who are not like us; we will not be able to prevent our children from speaking slander if we do not stop gossiping about public officials or our neighbors. True education is personal example, and if a son sees his father strictly observing the laws of slander during an election period, whether it is a government election or even an election for the House Committee, he will understand that this is the true way to behave all year round.
We will not be able to change the world in one day. Disputes and slander have been with us since the dawn of history. An example of this can be seen in the upcoming week's episodes in the story of the complainers, the spies, and Korah.
But the lessons can be learned at least for us, for each and every one of us personally: stop the gossip, stop the intrigues and plots, if not for us, then for the education of our child.
