It took under five minutes. The minister gave an awkward nod and stepped off the stage. The applause wasn’t raucous, but it was genuine.

What makes Rabbi Yaakov Litzman Israel’s most popular minister, despite his chassidic garb and lack of breezy finesse? When he resigned as health minister last week over repeated instances of government-sanctioned Shabbos desecration, even the secularists didn’t consider it a cynical political ploy, but one more battle in his focused mandate for kevod Shamayim.

The Yaakov Litzman story is one that’s confounded pollsters and political operatives for months now.

The man whose diplomatic skills are more marketplace fish vendor and less polished ambassador has proven not just effective, but very, very popular.

And he seems to know it. The first question I asked him when we met was about his popularity, and he almost — but not quite — smiled. Had he smiled, it might have appeared as if he was enjoying himself, and to Rabbi Yaakov Litzman, it’s all business.

“I’m happy I’m popular,” he shrugged. His English is flawless, as he’s American-born and raised, but he’s picked up an Israeli way of speaking, a certain bluntness. “It feels good to hear that secular Israelis have changed their opinions of chareidim because of me,” he said.

He ends sentences suddenly, not feeling the pressure to pontificate and expound like most politicians do.

It was about a year ago and the health minister was in Montreal as guest speaker at an upscale fundraising event for Magen David Adom. The guests at the party were largely secular Jews, passionately Zionist, and they made small talk and sipped cocktails as they waited for the program — the address by the minister. They expected to meet him as well, to chat informally and, of course, to take pictures with him. None of them had any idea who he was, or how he looked.

The well-heeled emcee made some jokes, speaking in the French to which most of the audience was accustomed, then introduced the keynote speaker.

At a table in the corner, a chassidic Jew with a long coat and hat — looking more like the rabbis from Israel that come collecting on Sunday mornings — stood up and headed toward the round dais, where purple smoke and dancing strobe light beams illuminated the glass lectern.

Yaakov Litzman stood ramrod straight, speaking in a near monotone, as if giving a grocery order over the telephone.

What he didn’t say was how happy he was to be there, how long he’s known the emcee, what an honor it was to address such a special crowd.

Here’s what he did say. How devoted the doctors and nurses are in Israel’s health system, how they see themselves as doing G-d’s work, how foreign doctors are amazed by the sophistication of Israeli equipment, and how badly they need help to keep on doing their thing. He paused and said that it’s specifically generous Jews from abroad who make every ambulance, X-ray machine, and extra hospital room possible.

It took under five minutes. The minister gave an awkward nod and stepped off the stage.

The applause wasn’t raucous, but it was genuine.

I met Litzman in his car, just after the speech. He hadn’t stuck around for the rest of the program, forgoing the main course and the mixing with local donors.

He was surrounded by two teams: Israeli security, the Shabak force that travels with a government minister; and his Gerrer assistants, led by chief aide Moti Bobchik, who encircled him as he walked toward the car. Seated next to me in the back of the rented Toyota Sienna, he reflected on his role as a minister.

Polls had shown him to be the most trusted politician in the country, I said. He didn’t seem overwhelmed. “Yes, but polls are like the weather, they change every day,” he responded.

As a minister, did he feel compelled to expand his mandate, to get involved in larger issues, like national security? “I don’t mouth off about Trump or things like that. I focus on my job — the country’s health system — and the issues important to the gedolim who sent me here.

“After all,” Litzman continued, “if any chareidi politician ran on his own, he’d have maybe ten votes, from his family. It’s only the admorim, rabbanim, and roshei yeshivah behind us that bring in votes and put us in office, so we’re really working for them. I do what I’m told. My rebbe, the Gerrer Rebbe, doesn’t get involved in small decisions and trusts me to do my job, but when it’s a bigger issue, I’ll consult with him.”

Two weeks ago, the Israeli government ran into one of those big issues — and discovered just how stubborn Yaakov Litzman could be when it came to his principles.

He resigned as health minister last week over repeated instances of Shabbos desecration by government-owned Israel Railways, but it was the culmination of a long battle.

A few months ago, Litzman hosted a sheva brachos for his grandson in his modest Jerusalem apartment. Local children had great fun gawking as the prime minister’s convoy pulled up Rechov Even Ha’ezel, dozens of security guards thronging their insular streets as the country’s leading lawmakers came to pay tribute to the Agudah-UTJ minister.

Inside, Rabbi Litzman sat at the head of the table, flanked by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Education and Diaspora Minister Naftali Bennett, and others, while Sara Netanyahu was feted among the women.

But then, Litzman departed from diplomatic protocol. Turning to the prime minister, he said, “The smiles here are very nice, but you’re going to have to do more on behalf of Shabbos before it turns into a government crisis.” Taken aback, Netanyahu tried to save face by saying that he would discuss it another time, After all, this was a personal simchah, not a business meeting, and this wasn’t the time and place.

Litzman ignored Bibi’s diplomatic attempt at avoidance, and, two seats over the chassan, he forged on. “I don’t mean to put you on the spot when you’re a guest at my simchah, but the holiness of Shabbos must be safeguarded. Stop the roadwork on Shabbos! That’s more important to me than anything else. When you turn Shabbos into ‘national construction day,’ you risk losing your government,” he said to a visibly embarrassed Netanyahu.

When a report of the exchange appeared on the pages of Hamodia the following day, the prime minister’s office was furious. What Litzman had done was bad enough, but to publish it? Litzman gave a backhanded apology, saying that he hadn’t meant to insult Netanyahu, but he didn’t retract his message. To him, it was a fulfillment of his core mission, and he was being faithful to the one who’d sent him there.

“True, that was a turning point,” Rabbi Litzman told Mishpacha this week. “But the battle for Shabbos actually went into high gear over a year ago, although the government always had excuses as to why work had to be done in the public sector. One time it’s pikuach nefesh, another time it’s security, another time they didn’t know… The topic came up every few weeks. I’d be updated on work planned for the coming Shabbos just hours before, sometimes even after the fact. It was getting to the point where something drastic had to be done.”

In the middle of Elul, four chareidi MKs — Rabbis Uri Maklev and Yisrael Eichler from UTJ and Rabbis Yoav Ben Tzur and Michael Malkieli from Shas — formed a government-sanctioned emergency committee to monitor Shabbos desecration in the public sector. The committee was to hear reports from the Labor, Welfare, and Transportation ministries onany work slated for Shabbos and determine if it was of an emergency nature.

“The committee was defunct from its inception because none of the ministries cooperated,” Litzman says. “I warned Netanyahu many times. I told him he’d pay for ignoring the decisions of the Moetzes. But he and his ministers chose not to listen.” What he doesn’t say is that they were convinced that a chareidi minister (itself a novelty), enjoying such obvious success and popularity (a double novelty), wouldn’t risk it all by walking away.

They were wrong.