Noam activist: "We took a resounding slap"

Instead of a campaign costing millions, we could have published a single poster signed by Rav Tau

He quotes a friend's summary that captures the pain: "Basically, it turns out that instead of a campaign that cost millions, a headquarters with hundreds of phone volunteers, hundreds of volunteers at booths, sign hangers, polished videos and house meetings in every corner of the country, you could have simply published a poster signed by Rav Tau, and you would have received exactly the same number of ballots in the ballot box."

The failure in the number of votes received is clear, he acknowledges, but understanding its source is far more difficult, and that, he says, is the truly important task.

He insists the campaign's claims were genuine: "We didn't lie. The publications about phone conversations with more than three hundred thousand voters are not a legend or fraud. The support percentages recorded immediately in the system at the end of each call are not an invention. The support, sympathy and endless encouragement at street booths and house meetings were not imagination or hallucination, they were authentic, sincere and from the heart."

We failed to get almost anyone to change their choice

But even with all of that, it was not enough to overcome two central difficulties facing any party, especially one running alone for the first time, Wachtel writes. The first difficulty relates to the ability to get someone to change their habits. "'You're great, dear, touching, a man of truth, dedicated and idealistic, but brother, I vote Shas'; 'You're the future, the salt of the earth and really touching the root of the matter, but man, I'm only Bibi.'"

Add to that difficulty the most convincing counter-campaign in the world, "You won't pass the threshold and because of you the entire right-wing bloc will fall," and you have an almost impossible mission, he writes.

Wachtel argues that the failure relates only to the level of the ballot in the ballot box. "We failed to get almost anyone to change their choice," he admits. While that is how success or failure is measured on election day, "history does not begin and does not end on that important day."

The long election period gave party activists, from phone volunteers at headquarters through avreichim at booths to speakers at house meetings, an opportunity for revolutionary encounters with many diverse segments of the Israeli public, who became acquainted with important messages, expressed appreciation, identification and belonging, and opened their eyes, even if only for a brief moment, to a world and truth they had not been exposed to before. "From this perspective it was a great success, because it joins the preparation of hearts for a new era in the history of the State of Israel," he writes.

Despite everything, we are here to stay

"So are you calming down with your political dreams and moving on with life? Heaven forbid," he writes. He compares the situation to Beitar Jerusalem football fans who never abandoned their team even after it received a five-goal drubbing from Poland's Wisla Krakow in 2008. "How can anyone think of abandoning an idea and flag on which the entire future of the State of Israel depends?"

He doesn't really know what comes next. "What I do know with certainty is that the Noam Liyisrael movement does not intend to close up shop. Why? Because for now it is the only one of all the movements that is truly marching toward a future that is not limited to training AI engineers, the only one that chose to raise the banner of holiness, the only one that marked the return to Jewish education as a goal for the entire State of Israel, and the only one that at least declares its intention to fight all the diseases of Western culture that threaten to destroy us as they are destroying it."

Since the election results were published, Wachtel notes, many people have beaten their chests on Noam's behalf and confessed for it what its "sin" was. Two important writers who made this confession were Amit Segal and Rav Chaim Navon. In their words, along with describing the failure in a mocking tone, they added what seemed less like an analysis of reality and more like wishful thinking: now, after it has been proven how few mandates the party is worth, perhaps it and the yeshiva it represents — Yeshivat Har Hamor — will return to their natural size in the religious-Zionist world.

"The truth is that Yeshivat Har Hamor is very weak in public relations, and not because it hasn't found the right copywriter," Wachtel responds. "If there is a yeshiva that does not push itself to the front of the stage and does not try to interfere in other matters besides 'Torah study and service of Hashem,' as Rav Navon put it, this is the yeshiva. The reason for the abundance of its influence and the attention it receives is related to one thing only: Yeshivat Har Hamor, together with other important yeshivos, is a home where Torah and fear of Heaven are raised seriously, responsibly, with dedication and perseverance. And I guess that even the practical failure in the recent elections will not change that in the slightest."

He concludes with a personal lesson from his father, who had criticized him sharply in recent weeks,"'You're endangering right-wing rule,' 'You won't pass the threshold', but in their first phone call after the results were published, chose not to mention the issue even once, presumably so as not to cause him pain.

"And I learned something that is simple and basic morality, but it is so great and wonderful: after everything and before everything there is a world of truth, a world of service of Hashem, a world of character refinement and moral work, and this world does not close temporarily for the elections, and even in them, with all their importance, not everything is postponed and not everything is permitted. Fortunate are you, Israel," he writes.