Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, who chairs the haredi-religious Shas Party, when to the grave of longtime Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef on Tuesday morning, accompanied by Rabbi Yosef's son, Rabbi David Yosef, a member of the party's Council of Torah Sages, as well as the party's Knesset members, party activists and children from the Shas Torah educational network.
They arrived in time for sunrise prayers and Selichot seasonal penitential prayers. Minister Deri said: "Today, we are stopping the 'secular government' and preserving a Jewish state in the way of our master. Today we are giving an answer at the polls." The Hebrew word he used for "answer" was "teshuva", which has the meaning of "repentance" or "penitence" in a religious context.