A FEW months ago, he was said to be at death's door. But Rabbi Eliezer Schach, reputed to be about 100 years old, has made a recovery. Perhaps it is his hatred of the Labour Party, and especially its leader, Shimon Peres, that gave him the strength to live until election day.
Yesterday morning, he was ferried ambulance to his local polling vote for Israel's next prime ministers.
There are no prizes for guessing that it was the slip of paper with Benjamin Netanyahu's name on it that be placed in his yellow voting envelope. The problem for Mr Peres is that Rabbi Schach probably made up the minds of the tens of thousands of religious loyalists who hang on his every word.
Mr Peres always knew he would have trouble winning much ultra Orthodox support. His commitment to granting Yasser Arafat control over West Bank towns such as Hebron was never going to endear him to this sector. But Mr Netanyahu should not have been to their taste either he has been married three times, publicly admitted cheating on his current wife, and his second wife was a gentile when they wed. Even if they weren't going to vote for him, Mr Peres had reason to hope that the ultra Orthodox leaders would not vote for his opponent either, but might simply boycott the separate prime ministerial elections, merely voting for a Knesset party of their choice instead.
Rabbi Schach's longevity changed all that. He it was last week who came out publicly for Mr Netanyahu.
On the streets of Jerusalem's ultra Orthodox neighbourhoods yesterday, huge banners urged voters, not to participate in the elections to do so would suggest that someone other than God called the shots in the Holy Land. But these entreaties were ignored, the turn out was high.
Mr Peres's only hope of countering the ultra Orthodox vote lay with the Arab community - constituting a similar 10 per cent of the electorate. The Housing, Minister, Benjamin Ben Eliezer, was despatched to the Arab areas of the Galilee to whip up support and get the voters to the polling booths.
Yasser Arafat has done his best to boost the Arab turnout, using his Voice of Palestine radio station to encourage voting. In the Arab town of Taibe yesterday, a truck with megaphones relayed Voice of Palestine to locals who had not yet got the message.
A dying rabbi, and the president of the people who live next door, using their influence to try and settle these elections. As the tourist advertisements used to say: "It could only be, Israel."