It's great to be here under the auspices of Karen Tikva, which I'm very proud to be associated with,

and great to really an honor to speak in Jerusalem, something I never.

I had many dreams growing up on the upper west side of New York City, being a major league baseball player,

and maybe going to Washington, D.C., but I never expected I'd actually be able to give a talk in Jerusalem.

So I hope.

I'm here under the auspices of Tiefa, where I've been teaching a little bit and working in a couple of seminars with Lassail and others.

We studied Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln.

I guess what was that, Tuesday night.

And then yesterday had a working group on conservatism.

And we read William Buckley and my father, Irving Crystal,

and other works, Ronald Reagan's speeches.

And in both of these classes, people asked, what about today? What about Donald Trump?

What about all the, what's happening in the world and in America?

And I was able to put off discussing all those things.

It was such a nice break, honestly, from Washington

and having to discuss these things all the time that I was able to say, well, I can't talk about

this in class. This is a serious class. But I'll talk, I guess I'll talk about it Thursday night.

I didn't really intend. I thought maybe I could avoid that also tonight, but I see a lot of the same people here, so I have to, I guess I do have to talk about the current situation. But I will talk about the current situation, since I think that's what I've been following, obviously, back in Washington. And then at the end, I'll try to put it in a broader perspective. But let me just begin with the presidential election in Washington, which as you know is happening this year, every four years.

2016 is an important election.

So let's just begin with the context.

It really is, I mean, all presidential elections, like all of your elections, seem important and exciting when they're happening, and very partisans on both sides are very worked up and think the world will end if their candidate is defeated or if their party is defeated. But in truth, if you look at it, looking afterwards and historically,

not every election is a key or decisive election. Some elections just continue the status quo

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