National Responsibility

My last speaking tour in the USA was in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Massive trees - uprooted - still blocked streets with crushed cars beneath them. I noticed one thing about the trees that fell in the storm - their trunks were all decayed in the center, weakened by termite infestation and disease.

The strongest and most massive tree won't live through a storm if it's decayed.

Nothing decays the Jewish People like slander and intramural hate. The current Israeli elections campaign has stooped to the worst level of slander I ever remember in all my 43 years of living here. A Jewish People decayed by lashon hara - evil speech - won't be strong enough to withstand the imminent challenges that are before us. Those politicians and parties who slander others are more of a danger to the Jewish People that Hamas, Hizbulla, and Iran altogether. They are worse than terrorists and they don't deserve your vote.

Be positive - sell yourself as much as you like and tell us why you deserve our vote. But why slander others? Why speak detrimentally about entire groups of Jews whose opinions don't agree with yours? Are they not Hashem's children too?

Those who speak with evil tongues will not benefit from Divine assistance. Whatever they do won't succeed, so why vote for them.

People ask me who to vote for. If you're an eligible voter in Israel, vote for the party that has only good things to say about every other Jew; that's the party that will benefit from Hashem's help. In that case, they'll succeed.

A clean tongue is a matter of Jewish national responsibility. If a politician can't control his tongue, he certainly can't control a nation.

Comments

[Shotgun]

OK, Rabbi - I'm going to follow through on your advice.
All the left wing parties have chosen the cheap populism of bashing Charedim and Torah learners. They certainly don't deserve our vote.
The Likud has been bad-mouthing Naftali Bennett and the Bayit Hayehudi around the clock - so the Likud doesn't deserve my vote either (Feiglin, I never understood what you're doing with the Likud).
Shas has insulted Russian immigrants.
Who's left?
As far as I know, Aguda and Bayit Hayehudi are the only parties with positive platforms and clean mouthes.
From what I hear, there's factions and infighting in the Aguda.
That leaves Bayit Hayehudi.
Thanks for helping me to decide - up until now, I was confused.

[Tal]

I don't agree with you, Shotgun, even though most of what you say is true. There are no fighting and infactions in Aguda. If you want Torah, you have to vote for Aguda. True, there are great people in Bayit Hayehudi, but Torah is not their main focus. They want to integrate Haredim into Israeli society. I say the opposite - lets pull Israeli society into the world of Torah. That means that you must vote "Gimel" - Aguda.