Shas chairman Aryeh Deri has revealed previously undisclosed details of an emotional private meeting with Maran Rav Ovadia Yosef zt”l, during which the revered Sephardic Torah leader tearfully asked him to accept the second position on the Shas Knesset list, behind Eli Yishai, who had once served as Deri’s own assistant.

In an exclusive interview with journalist Yishai Cohen of Kikar Hashabbat, Deri described the extraordinary encounter, which took place on the morning before Shas was scheduled to submit its Knesset candidate list, as he prepared to return to political life after years away from the party’s leadership.

Deri recalled that Rav Ovadia summoned him into his private bedroom, closed the door, and sat him down on his bed before making a request that would require him to surrender the leadership position he had previously held.

“I will never forget that moment,” Deri said. “You ask me about it today? I myself cannot believe that I managed to withstand it. It was the morning before the candidate lists were submitted. Maran called me into his bedroom alone, closed the door, sat me down on his bed, took my hand, and embraced me.”

According to Deri, Rav Ovadia began by expressing his deep personal affection for him and asking for a promise that he would not refuse what he was about to request.

“‘Rav Aryeh, you are like my son, more than my son. I am going to ask you for something. Do not refuse me. Do you promise me?'” Deri recalled Rav Ovadia saying.

Deri responded, “‘Rav, have I ever refused you anything until today?'”

Only then did Rav Ovadia explain what he wanted: Deri would return to the Shas Knesset list, but Eli Yishai would remain in the first position, with Deri serving beneath him.

“‘This is a very difficult test,'” Rav Ovadia told him, according to Deri. “‘I am asking you not to be number one on the list. I know that Eli Yishai was your assistant, that you are older than him, and that you were always the leader of the movement. But I am asking you: Be number two on the list.'”

The request placed Deri in an extraordinarily difficult position. Having previously led Shas and played a central role in building the party into a major force in Israeli politics, he was now being asked to return in a subordinate position to a man who had once worked under him.

Deri said that seeing Rav Ovadia’s tears immediately settled the matter for him.

“I immediately bent down and kissed his hand,” Deri recalled. “Maran had tears in his eyes as he made the request, and I had tears in my eyes as I answered him affirmatively, kissed his hand, and said: ‘Kavod Harav, whatever you say will be.'”

After Deri agreed, Rav Ovadia offered him words of encouragement, invoking the well-known account in Chazal involving Hashem and Yeravam ben Nevat, in which Yeravam’s concern over who would occupy the leading position prevented him from accepting an extraordinary opportunity.

“Maran told me the story of HaKadosh Baruch Hu and Yeravam ben Nevat — ‘Who will be first?’ He kissed me and said: ‘You passed this test. Hashem will reward you.'”

Deri said that when he emerged from the bedroom and informed his family members and close associates of the decision, they were stunned.

For those who had worked alongside him during his earlier years as Shas chairman, the idea that he would willingly accept the second position behind Eli Yishai seemed almost inconceivable.

“When I came out and told my family and friends, nobody believed me,” Deri recalled. “They said to me: ‘Are you crazy? You’re going to be number two?! This is outrageous.'”

Deri said he refused to entertain their objections, insisting that Rav Ovadia’s request had ended any discussion about his position on the list.

“I answered them firmly: Maran asked — that’s it, end of discussion. I agreed to be number two. We submitted the Knesset list with me in second place, with Eli Yishai at the top and me beneath him.”

The episode occurred during Deri’s political comeback ahead of the 2013 Knesset elections, when Shas was navigating the sensitive question of how to reintegrate its former chairman while Eli Yishai continued to lead the party.