IN THE HANDS OF THE KING OF KINGS

A king on strings of light, his heart in the hands that hold them. “Like channeled water is the mind of the king in G-d’s hand” (Mishlei 21:1).

Ariel Bar Yosef, 22, spent 18 hours in the air on three flights from Goa, India, to vote. Karnit Weinberger landed at Ben Gurion for a few hours and flew back to Bucharest the same afternoon. In the Arava, rain closed Route 90 and flooded the roads, and Paran and Shaharut still reported 100 percent turnout. Soldiers voted at more than 890 military polling stations, some of them in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. In Mea She’arim, a man named Yehoshua called it “a day of prayer.” “Whatever happens is in God’s hands,” he said. Israel voted on Tuesday, October 27, and 77.9 percent of those eligible cast a ballot, the highest turnout since 1999.

The count left no one with a majority. Likud is the largest party, with 27 seats, and Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar has 21. Binyamin Netanyahu’s bloc holds 53 seats, the Zionist opposition 48, and the Arab parties a record 19. A government needs 61. “The Likud is the biggest party in Israel,” Netanyahu said at 3:20 in the morning. “The public voted for change,” Eisenkot said. President Isaac Herzog, who receives the certified results by November 4, asked the parties to come to him with an open mind: “We must do everything we can… to avoid another round of elections.”

Near the polling stations, about 1,500 Chabad shluchim set up tefillin stands under the day’s slogan: “Today and every day, I also choose Jewish unity - I love every Jew.”

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This Shabbos the Torah reading is Vayeira. Avraham settles in Gerar and says of Sarah, “She is my sister.” “So King Abimelech of Gerar had Sarah brought to him.” “But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night” and warned him. Abimelech pleaded that he had acted in innocence, and Hashem answered: “I knew that you did this with a blameless heart, and so I kept you from sinning against Me. That was why I did not let you touch her.” Rashi: “It was not of your own will that you did not touch her, but it was ‘I’ who withheld you from sinning.”

Shlomo HaMelech, himself a king, wrote: “Like channeled water is the mind of the king in G-d’s hand—For it is directed according to God’s wishes.” The Malbim explains why a king is different from anyone else: “Although the heart of an individual is under his own control and the choice is in his hands, this is not so with the heart of a king. Since the welfare of the community depends upon his choice, and if he chooses an evil path he will destroy many and mighty people, his communal heart is therefore in the hand of Hashem.” The Ralbag adds that in the affairs of the kingdom the king is like Hashem’s messenger, and that if those affairs were left entirely to his own choice, it would be a great danger to the people under him.

When Abimelech asked Avraham why he had hidden the truth, the Torah gives his answer: “I thought,” said Abraham, “surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.” In 5722 the Rebbe wrote to Shlomo Zalman Shragai, a former mayor of Jerusalem, about the education of children. The Ten Commandments begin with “I am Hashem your God” and “You shall have no other gods,” and only then say “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet.” If we want a child to keep the later ones, the Rebbe wrote, his whole education must rest on faith in the first and on rejecting everything that falls under the second. “To our sorrow we have been shown in our own days and our own generation that the very nation [Germany] that raised the banner of every kind of philosophy and ideal was in the end the place where only [Avraham’s] words came true: ‘there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me.’ Not so the Torah, the Torah of life, which assures not only eternal life in the World to Come, but also a life worthy of the name in this world.”

When the Alter Rebbe was freed from prison on 19 Kislev 5559, he wrote two days later to Rabbi Chaim Chaikl of Amdur: “They have freed me from the fortress in which they imprisoned me, and the hearts of kings and ministers are in the hand of Hashem, for kindness.”

May Hashem turn the hearts of Israel’s leaders for kindness, to a government that keeps the people safe and sets the fear of God at its foundation, and bring the day of which the prophet says: “And G-d shall be sovereign over all the earth; in that day there shall be one G-d with one name.”

Sources
Bereishis 20:1–6, 20:11
Rashi on Bereishis 20:6
Mishlei 21:1, with Malbim and Ralbag
Igros Kodesh of the Rebbe, vol. 22, letter 8429 (Erev Shavuos 5722)
Igros Kodesh of the Alter Rebbe, letter 164 (21 Kislev 5559)
The Rebbe's letter to Shalom Levine, 2 Elul 5723
Zechariah 14:9
Times of Israel, October 28–30, 2026 (election liveblogs; Central Elections Committee final results; Herzog; Mea She’arim)
Ynetnews, October 27–28, 2026 (Ben Gurion airport; the Arava; Eisenkot)
JNS, October 27, 2026: A holiday for democracy
Israel National News, October 27, 2026 (Chabad tefillin stands)