“It makes no difference who is sitting on the throne,” Moshe Feiglin
writes from Jerusalem this week in his commentary on Torah. “What really
matters is where the heart of the nation resides.” Feiglin is writing
about how Pharaoh sees the great power he is, a power telling him he is
god the river, and god the creator of all that is, as it disintegrates
around him and the world awaken again from the wreckage with Aaron and
Moses. It is a fully appropriate reading for this week as Israelis
prepare to go to the polls. The creations of Pharaoh appear on the verge
of falling into the river, and Israel on the verge of finding its
heart.
 
The questions we have asked here since Sandy, the storm,
and Sandy Hook — guns, federal aid, psychotic movies passing as high
culture, fascist computer games — suggest symptoms. Mentioned here
recently, China has stepped away. Germany recalls its gold from the
world. And on Jan. 22, Israel steps away from America.

{mosads}Two men, Moshe Feiglin and Naftali Bennett, enter the Knesset this week and their rise has already changed the trajectory of Israel. The influential Israeli columnist Caroline Glick reports:

“Next week we’re going to vote and it is already clear that Israel is in the midst of the Second Zionist Revolution. The first Zionist revolution was a socialist revolution. The second Zionist revolution is Jewish. Israel is coming into its own. Judaism is flourishing, changing, living and breathing here like it never has anywhere since the destruction of the Second Commonwealth. The secular left has been eclipsed by the Jewish right. I don’t call it the religious right because that is too limiting. What’s happening isn’t just about religion, it’s about everything, and that is why non-observant hipsters in Tel Aviv are voting for the Jewish Home party. Non-observant and observant Jews are joining forces and the anti-religious are being left behind.”