We just finished talking on the phone for a long time.
You were upset, I felt how your world was getting darker and darker about you, how the inner distress and the feeling that "the country has gone to you" was getting stronger and stronger in you, and that you were thinking of leaving Israel.
I remember at least three times when "the state went".
It happened already in '96, and even as a child I already felt this atmosphere of the disabled in '77.
But look how much life we've had since then.
Some are better, some less.
All in all, when you look back, left and right, everything today is pretty similar to last night, and everything is pretty good, isn't it?
Well, maybe from the left it looks like we all moved to Germany and the year is 1933. But come on, we're Jews, we like to exaggerate our anxieties and see Nazis everywhere, and considering our past - it's completely understandable.
But what changed these elections from the previous ones?
You spoke of the legal coup as the governmental revolution.
But we quickly agreed that both of us, like most of the public, are not really jurists who know how to say whether this is a revolution, a coup or a weak reform.
We both know that for every jurist who shouts "Gewald", you can find a jurist who blesses "that we have lived".
Life is 50 thousand shades of clauses.
This is not to say that these things are not important, on the contrary - they are very important and deserve clarification and demonstrations against and for, not because we need a balance between the extremists from all directions, but because we really need to find out what changes are needed in the justice system and what are not.
But do we really know for sure whether this is the position or the narrative that is being spoken from the throats of these or those?
And more importantly - is this really what makes you think about leaving the country?
You know that financially I'm generally on the right side of the map, you said, and what worries me a lot is the overall picture.
The fact that they don't see my democratic right to live here the way I want, that the settlers and the ultra-Orthodox force a halachic state on me and then the state really is halachic.
If so, remove worry from your heart.
Most humans are a straight line, give them a curved or logarithmic function - and they lose direction.
That is why we tend to see what is happening now as the given situation that will last forever, while in my understanding it is the end of one era and the beginning of another.
We see for the first time the coalition of black, knitted and invisible caps forming a government alone and in full.
You are so afraid of the ultra-orthodox and their "huge" culture.
Sees them only through self-centered media and assumes that these are millions of idlers who make children and Gemara at the expense of the (too many) tax payers.
But come with me sometime to Bnei Brak on Thursday, or to Netivot on Friday, and you'll see how much the current generation of young ultra-Orthodox is an Israeli generation, with completely Israeli desires, sushi, iPads and better life brands and earn more.
The new ultra-Orthodox may look similar, but they speak Ikea fluently, which means fewer children and more jobs than income from GMCs and alms-giving blessings.
It's true, when you look at the sealed faces of the greats of the generation, you might think we live in the 18th century, but anyone who gets close knows that inside is bright and cluttered.
In fact, when you say ultra-Orthodox as one group, you ignore the huge difference between the different ultra-Orthodox groups, some of which are even further away from each other than your distance from them.
What holds this large body together is the sesame husks in which you wrap them as "Orthodox".
Therefore, the biggest challenge of the ultra-orthodox leadership today is to preserve the definitions that will not be breached in the face of the great surge of change.
The second partners in the dome coalition are the settlers.
Let's put them aside for a moment, mainly because under the tip of the iceberg on which the captains of the Titanic Smotrich and Ben Gvir are standing, there is a large body, where they are about to collide head-on, and it is the third, largest, most important and most hidden part of the coalition of domes - the traditional ones.
The traditional ones are the hardest to see and understand.
Not because they're hiding, but because it's hard to be distinct when you're indistinct.
It's hard to be black or white when you're both.
Both respects tradition and likes to show off.
The values of Shabbat and Kiddush on the table are also important to you, but woe to those who forbid you to travel on Shabbat to visit your family.
You see, this coalition between ultra-Orthodox, settlers and traditionalists is a bull prone to a collision, which has been waiting to happen for many years.
I got this political interpretation from my grandmother, the late Mary Gabbay.
It happened when my ultra-Orthodox cousin refused the handshake and cheek kisses when he came to visit.
Disappointed and amazed, my grandmother turned to her ultra-Orthodox son and said: "I don't know what is ultra-Orthodox and what is religious, but if that's how you behave, Jews - you are not."
The traditionalists mostly flowed to the right following the loudness of the settlers and the ultra-Orthodox, and it is clear why.
As lovers of the people of Israel and the State of Israel, lovers of the Torah of Israel and the Torah of the games, the songs and the goals, true to their nature, the traditionalists were comfortable being both and and and and.
But as far as I understand, the current coalition is going to make the traditionalists stop sitting on the fence, one foot here, one foot there.
Because sitting like this, for so many years, mainly causes pain in the place where children start.
Why don't you think they are going to collide with each other?
you asked
Well, you can think of the settler and ultra-Orthodox leaders as the vegans of politics.
True, it seems that they represent the masses, mainly because they make the most noise, but in the end, they are unable to understand that it is possible to both like the matter and not live according to their piety.
If you think that the situation today is difficult and polarized, imagine what would happen if the vegans in the Likud and Compassion coalition decided to ban the sale of shawarma in Israel, and the Friday haraim ban.
How many would come to the demonstrations on the eve of the night?
That is why I once again return to my grandmother, who knew how to make compromises between the Likudnik and the Mechrah, between the ultra-orthodox and the infidel, between the meat-eating grandchildren and the vegetarians who love the "Aorisa" and seat them all together at the same table.
With all the arguments that shook the walls, no one was thrown out of the tiny Amidar apartment she had in Shikon D.
We have always known that we are family first and traditional families always compromise, and the silent majority of this coalition is traditional.
If the current coalition tries, God forbid, to pass laws against LGBT people, enforcement of halachic laws on Shabbat, or worse - an infringement on freedom of speech and insults, it will find out very quickly how moderation turns into anger, and what it is to "slap me" that will return them to their natural place I left the Shabbat table, to make do with the "knife" leftovers.
You see, friend, sometimes it seems like we're all ranged targets walking around with identity politics signs in the maze of lonely towers.
But we are not cardboard figures.
In the end, most Israelis are family and tradition, who can live with this duality.
We celebrate Hanukkah, Novy God, Christmas and also the Feast of Sacrifice, with fun.
We are a bit religious and a bit not.
And we are sometimes more Jewish and sometimes more Israeli.
And with all this, what we have in common is greater than what separates us.
But we won't be able to know that if we don't sit down together at the Shabbat table.
And that's exactly what will happen if you leave here.
We live in the future, how do you know that this column was not written by artificial intelligence?
The present is a diverse wonderland.
It is a world of multiple possibilities, renewal and constant and accelerated change.
In a strange way, the way that is most adapted to such a flexible and flowing world and life is traditionalism, which clings to the past but does not fight the future.
Hang in there mate, the best part of the meal is yet to come.
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