Families walk together to the polls; neighbours -- even those with whom you haven't spoken since the first day you moved in, even those who regard you as an interloper in the neighbourhood -- nod in recognition of the moral imperative of the religious duty to vote. Maybe in Bnei Brak or Mea Shearim, maybe in Shfar'am or Taibe, there is a sense of urgency and tension and violence.

In Tel Aviv -- at least within the boundaries of the sea and the Haifa Road, the Yarkon and Mograbi -- there is an almost spiritual air of the commonweal; a secular serenity of sorts.

At most, like haredim worried about lost souls driving on Shabbat, the ideologically committed remind the owners of open-for-business kiosks, restaurants and cafes, of their obligation to vote.

But it's done cheerfully, not angrily.

The schools suddenly become what they should be all year round -- the secular synagogues of the community, gathering places where the future is made.

You can see the congregation gathering from a block or two away. Inside, some know all the prayers -- how to read their voter registration card, which names the voting booth, i.e., the classroom chapel in which they will perform their rituals.

Others need help, like new congregants in a synagogue, and like in a synagogue, the better informed, the more knowledgeable, use their fingers to point out on the card, the proper place in the prayers, the polling booth number.

Like elderly members of a venerable minyan at a shul entrance, ushers at the entrance to each of the classroom chapels, point the newcomer to a place in line.

In the chapels, the shul leaders sit behind a desk, like on a bima, the torah scroll of voter registration lists open in front of them. There is the rabbi, who takes the id card, the hazan, who reads out loud the name of the voter, the shamash, who crosses the name of the voter off the list. And a gabai, a backup witness, marks off an id number on a computerized card.

The ritual is halfway through when the rabbi hands an empty envelope to the congregant, who then goes to the ark, and then steps into that secret place, the holy of holies of a democracy, where the private conscience merges almost mystically with the will of the citizens, to become the next government -- or opposition.

And afterwards, like after any morning minyan, there's a bit of gossip in the corridor with an acquaintance from the neighbourhood, and then on to the kiddush, some schnapps at a local cafe.

There, like a hevruta at their daily page, voters discuss their choices, analyzing the last published poll, drawing conclusions from their speculations.

Whatever the result of the vote, for some, yesterday, voting was a way of being so good that with their vote, they brought what they believed to be a secular saviour, the government of their choice.

For others, voting yesterday was like a deathbed prayer, one last, hopeful but ineffective attempt to stop the inevitable.

For all, it was as religious a ceremony as any invented by a rabbi, a kadi or a priest.