Shamir smiled and said, “Save the paper I signed – it’ll be worth a lot of money one day; it will be a museum piece!”
Rav Porush never forgave him, and in 1990, when Shimon Peres’s no-confidence motion brought down the government, Rav Porush was ready join the new leftist government that was about to be formed.
Only Rav Shach and the Rebbe of Lubavitch saved Shamir and he again formed a government, this time with all the small parties and the religious ones too.
And then in the Gulf War the following year, Shamir recognized that Tehillim is indeed more powerful than Tillim. He, along with everyone else, witnessed the attack of the 39 Scuds – the precise amount of the 39 forbidden laws of Shabbos. And he heard reports that the one person who died succumbed to a heart attack of a heart attack and that this man had fought Shabbat road closures.
And we witnessed this after the war. Bush pressured Shamir into having the Madrid conference, to trade land for peace with the people that were whistling on the rooftops, as the deadly scuds were shooting towards Tel Aviv!
Shamir refused to send his foreign minister, David Levy. He wanted no mistakes. He wanted to talk but not to give. He proclaimed publicly, in no uncertain terms, “There is no room on this side of the Jordan for two states!”
But to talk? Farvos nit? – why not? – and with only talk in mind, he himself went to the Madrid talks.
And on the first Erev Shabbos in Madrid, he showed how the miracles of the Gulf War affected him when he declared in front of the cameras of the world media, “It’s Erev Shabbos, I’m a Jew, so I’m going home for Shabbos.”
I was so impressed with this Kiddush Hashem that I praised him in a six-inch display ad in the Jerusalem Post and invited him to my home in Jerusalem’s Old City for a Shabbos meal.
He didn’t come, but who cares? Now, with his honored burial on Mount Herzl, his soul will be where it’s Shabbos forever, and he will be there for the reading of Parshas Balak, where Bilam declares, “He [God] sees no inequity in Jacob……”
Rest in Peace, Tiny Mighty Man, and be an upright spokesperson for your Charming Nation Israel, so that we may live in peace in all of our land. Shalom, Chaver.
Dov Shurin is a popular radio personality and the composer and producer of several albums of original composition. He lives with his family in Israel and can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears in The Jewish Press every other week.