The Daily Shiur of Moreinu HaRav Eliezer Berland shlit”a, Sunday, Parshat Ki Tisa, the night of 17 Adar-Alef, after Ma’ariv:

It is written in the Parasha, “Every man, put his sword on his thigh”; everyone needs to take sword on thigh – today, it is ballots.  Today, we fight with ballots; they used to fight with swords.  Today, they decided that instead of killing each other, cutting off heads, everyone places a ballot. A thousand votes are lacking for the last delegate, for another delegate of Agudah.  In order to bring another thousand votes, everyone must call another twenty people.  Everyone from Shuvu Banim [should call] their grandmother, grandfather, uncles, neighbors.  Everyone wants to vote for Agudah, everyone.  Even Teddy [Kollek, the former mayor of Jerusalem] said that he wanted to vote for Agudah.  It is written in the book of Rav Aryeh Levine.  He said, “I want to go to put on Tefilin.  They’ll just say that I went crazy.  But if not for that, I would already put on Tefilin.” I met many IDF commanders, major generals and brigadier generals, who have started to put on Tefilin.  [They said,] “We have always wanted to put on Tefilin, only that the embarrassment didn’t allow us.”  But this is the aspiration of every Jew, to put on Tefilin.  The aspiration of every Jew is to keep Shabbat.  Every Jew has a Godly soul.  There is only one God.  “Remember the Shabbat day to sanctify it.” And only Agudah will fight for the Shabbat, for [closing] non-kosher stores.  All the other parties are willing to open a non-kosher store – the main thing is that the Hilonim (secular Jews) will vote.  Those who came from Russia are opening non-kosher stores.  And everyone is willing – everyone wants to draw to themselves the Russians, so they are willing to open up non-kosher stores.  But Agudah is the only one that fights.  This is the ruling of all the great rabbis of the generation, and the ruling of Shuvu Banim is that we only vote for Agudah and not for any other party.  Everyone must bring – there are thirty hours.  Until the closing of the ballot boxes at ten at night, 48 hours are left for us.  Everyone needs to see to bringing another ten people, so we can bring another thousand votes, so that we will have one more representative.