Thoughts on Flag Day

This week, on Saturday, we mark the national observance of Flag Day, a commemoration officially established in the 20th century, though marked in various places previously, of the adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777. It is not an official federal holiday, but an opportunity to affirm our commitment to the values enshrined in our national banner. June 14th, as we have been reminded, also marks the 250th anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Army, an occasion co-opted by the President for his own birthday celebration, complete with a military parade that is reminiscent of other parades by regimes whose values are not in line with the values that we celebrate in our national emblem. At the same time, around the country, the values of our national flag and the Constitution of the United States will be celebrated by demonstrators participating in “No Kings Marches” protesting the erosion of our laws and values under the current administration.

Most of us may recall the morning exercises held in classrooms around the country where an American flag adorned each room and students would rise, place their right hand over their hearts and proclaim the Pledge of Allegiance “to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” We have often failed to live up to these values of liberty and justice for all in a republic whose populace is indivisible. Yet these are values that we Americans cherish and by which we aspire to live.

I’m not sure what the earliest flags on record were, though our sages claim that the flags mentioned in the opening chapters of Numbers, assigned to each of the twelve tribes, were the earliest flags. According to the Midrash, God’s heavenly hosts of angels who appeared to the Israelites at the revelation at Mount Sinai were accompanied by banners. These flags symbolized the close relationship between God and those angels. Israel desired a similar relationship and thus each tribe encamped around the desert tabernacle set up a flag to rally its members. According to the rabbis, the colors of these flags were identical with the colors of the precious stones on the breastplate of the high priest, thus indicating the desire of the twelve tribes to connect with the divine.

Each of those flags also had a symbol on it relating to its history, to the biblical narratives, or to the blessing bestowed upon it by the patriarch Jacob. The Hebrew word for flag is “degel” whose letters the Midrash plays with, switching dalet and gimel to represent greatness (gadlut), extolling the majesty of the Lord. The symbols on these flags, as on modern flags, give us a sense of the values enshrined in those banners. The Midrash Rabbah interprets the meaning of each of those symbols.

Some of the flags in present-day use around the world have symbols going back centuries to late medieval times, while others are more recent. We can point to the stars on the American flag which have been described since the beginning of the republic as representing a new constellation, a new beginning for the diverse peoples united under it. The colors have been interpreted as standing for important values. The red stripes stand for valor and courage, the blood shed by those who fought to defend our country. White is for purity and hope, the foundation of our country free of oppressive monarchies, seeking freedom and equity for all people. Blue represents justice and eternal vigilance to maintain the values we cherish.

By contrast, the Nazi flag dispensed with the democratic flag of the Weimar Republic and returned to the colors of the Empire. Its central feature, the swastika, originally was a symbol of well-being in Eastern religions, but had been co-opted by right-wing fascist groups and was taken by the Nazi party to represent its so-called “Aryan” racist ideology. Today, the use of the swastika has been banned in Germany.

The modern-day Israeli flag, like the flags of the tribes in the desert draws on religious symbolism, the blue and white of the tallit, the Jewish prayer shawl perhaps reflects the prayer incorporated in the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah, of “the 2000-year-old hope to be a free people in our own land.” Resting between the two stripes is the Magen David, a more modern symbol going back only a few centuries to represent Judaism and the Jewish community. Various interpretations have been given to the two interlocking triangles that make up the six-pointed star. Together, however, they represent world Jewry’s eternal connection to the land of our ancestors and to modern-day Israel.

Flags are only aspirational. They can represent the kind of nation or group we aspire to become. However, it is the actual behavior of a nation, its government, and its citizens that determine who they really are and what their true values are. Our prayer is that of which we sing in our national anthem that our star-spangled banner may continue to wave over “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Edward Friedman