Shortly before the sun went down over Israel last night, a huge lorry-load of turbine parts set off at a snail-like 4 m.p.h., blocking three lanes of the country's main roads, for a power station at Ashkelon, on the southern Israeli coast.
Even though two religious parties in the Israeli government had threatened to quit if the shipment went ahead, in protest at what they argued was an intolerable desecration of the Jewish Sabbath, the coalition of the Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, remained intact, and can now devote itself to its main task of peacemaking with the Palestinians and Syrians.
The great "turbine crisis" that has gripped Israel these past two days, and reminded those with short political memories that even apparently stable Israeli governments can always be vulnerable to the most improbable blows, eventually subsided with a whimper - the ultra-Orthodox parties that had provoked it deciding, in what was a game of political chicken, that they could not afford to throw away their access to government funds over the kind of Sabbath cross-country cargo delivery that has passed unnoticed innumerable times in the past.
To ease their descent from the high branches, a compromise of sorts was agreed: the shipment was loaded before the Friday eve start of the Sabbath, it will be unloaded only after the Sabbath has ended tonight, and it is being driven by non-Jews.
Although such arrangements were always on offer, it was only yesterday afternoon that the ultra-Orthodox politicians pronounced themselves sufficiently mollified to withdraw their threats to defect.
But Mr Barak, too, was forced to compromise, just a little, over the issue. Although he had originally vowed not to get involved at all, arguing that the cargo was none of his government's business, he did have to play a role - authorising one of the rabbis who sits in his cabinet to mediate the turbine transport deal. And, it is being suggested, he may also have granted a financial allocation to one of the ultra-Orthodox parties involved, Shas, to help boost its educational network.
If so, Mr Barak evidently concluded that this price was worth paying, since he now maintains a stable Knesset majority to vote through his first major deal with the Palestinians over a series of West Bank land handovers, Palestinian prisoner releases and other long-stalled peace moves.