If Mr Ehud Barak, Israel's prime minister-in-waiting, was the clearest winner in Monday's elections, the second most successful politician was indisputably Mr Aryeh Deri, leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas, who steered his party to a colossal 17 seats in the 120-member Knesset.
Yet Mr Deri, a former minister of the interior, is a convicted criminal, found guilty two months ago of taking bribes, and subsequently sentenced to four years in jail. And so last night, conscious that Mr Barak would not even contemplate bringing Shas into his governing coalition so long as he remained at its helm, Mr Deri announced his resignation from politics.
He told a press conference that, while continuing to oversee Shas's "social, spiritual and educational" activities, he would not take his seat in the Knesset.
The rise of Shas - established only 15 years ago, and now close to overtaking Mr Benjamin Netanyahu's battered Likud as the second most powerful force in Israeli politics - is the counterpoint to Mr Barak's election victory, the clearest indication of the religious rifts in Israeli society.
While Mr Barak's triumph demonstrates a shift to the left by many Israeli voters, towards a greater pragmatism in peace negotiations and a deeper commitment to democratic principles, Shas's success shows that a fast-growing minority of Israelis are ready to place more faith in rabbis than the judiciary.
Under Mr Deri's intelligent leadership, Shas has built up support among working-class Israelis of Middle Eastern and north African origin, the Sephardim, in the most direct way: through their pockets.
Holding control of the critical Interior Ministry through various changes of government since the mid-1980s, Shas has allocated government funds to create a vast educational network where cash-strapped parents can send their children for more hours than state schools offer, with free transportation and free lunches.
The families who turn to Shas may not be Orthodox Jews when they first send their children to one of these schools, but the Shas values tend to permeate. Shas has fuelled a massive "return-to-Judaism" movement and every new adherent attracts recruits.
Mr Deri further boosted support for Shas in these elections by insisting he was innocent of the bribery charges, and had been falsely convicted by a tainted judicial establishment bent only on persecuting all Sephardim.
The Shas spiritual mentor, Rabbi Ovadya Yosef, a learned but eccentric figure, proclaimed he had personally investigated the case and confirmed Mr Deri's innocence. That half a million Israelis were prepared to vote for a party headed by a criminal, a free man only while he pursues an appeal to the Supreme Court, suggests a greater confidence in the judgment of Rabbi Yosef than in that of the Jerusalem District Court.
If it is to continue to thrive, however, Shas must have access to government funds. Although the party takes a moderate line on peacemaking, it endorsed the hardline Benjamin Netanyahu before Monday's elections. Mr Deri's resignation last night is designed to smooth Shas's path into the Barak government. The question now is whether Mr Barak will bring Shas in, or risk consigning the party to opposition.