The Sanctity of Flags

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May 26 2017
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I”ll admit it. I'm a patriotism nerd. I love flags, marching bands, color guards and the like. One of the happiest days of my youth was when our cable company offered C-SPAN.



With all the hoopla (positive and negative) about President Trump's trip to Israel, I couldn't miss any of the videos of the honor guards. What struck me was when Air Force one landed (I'm a huge Air Force One nerd as well) land the president and Mrs. Trump sailed down the steps and took their spot on the red carpet next to the Rivlins and Netanyahus, the anthems of both the United States and Israel were played by the Israeli military band. Behind the dignitaries stood the US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, and the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, two American-born Torah observant Yeshiva graduates. When the Star Spangled Banner began, the Americans placed the palms of their hands on their hearts and stood at attention. I sensed that Ambassador Dermer was uncomfortable as he was as familiar with the Star Stangled Banner as he was Hatikvah, but knew he represented Israel. I was moved by Mrs. Trump's grace and solemnity during the playing of the US national anthem. After all, she grew up in yet another country. When the band played Hatikvah, the Israelis all mouthed the words (including US Ambassador Friedman, probably out of respect and out of pure instinct). Both Israeli and American military escorts saluted for both anthems. But Israeli President Reuven “Ruvi” Rivlin, didn't just mouth the words. He sang the song audibly. (Point your browser here for video of the arrival ceremony, with the anthems between 4:30 and 7:00).



When it comes to these types of ceremonies each culture has its distinct customs. Covering one's heart with one's hand is one manifestation as is singing. Nothing is right or wrong, although these rites and mores are probably instructive about the nuances of various cultures.



It is undeniable that flags, proudly displaying tribal colors and logos, go back to Biblical times.



"איש על דגלו באתת לבית אבתם יחנו בני ישראל, מנגד סביב לאהל מועד יחנו" (במדבר ב:ב)


“The Children of Israel shall encamp, each man at his division according to the signs of their father's house, at a distance surrounding the Tent of Meeting shall they encamp” (Bamidbar 2:2).



Rashi teaches us that these flags of these divisions are all unique. The colors parallel the tribal stones on the breastplate of the Kohen Gadol (High Priest).



The Israeli flag began as the emblem of the Zionist movement. This movement was far from religious. As such, the Israeli flag – the kachol v'lavan (blue and white) - has been the source of some controversy, and highlights modern Israel's dual identity as both a secular republic and, for some, a step towards the ultimate religious redemption.



Theodore Herzl's diary contains a draft of a Zionistic flag that never made it off the cutting room floor. It had seven yellow stars, six represented the work week. What today is the Israeli flag was conceived by David Wolfsohn, a close associate and successor to Herzl. He purportedly dreamt up the idea because it resembled his tallis, with the blue stripe (today many have black) representing the Biblical color of t'cheiles, which the Talmud reminds us (Chullin 89a) brings to mind the sea, which recalls the sky, which ultimately resembles the Divine throne. Despite its distance for tradition, the flag of the Zionist movement ultimately reveals deep religious roots.



My friend and colleague Rabbi Reuven Brand of the Yeshiva University Torah Mitzion kollel of Chicago unearthed some gems about the Israeli flag (you can listen to his shiur here) based on the excellent research of Rabbi Ari Shavat, an expert on Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Hakohen Kook.



For some, especially those associated with the anti-Zionist Camp, the Israeli flag can only be profane. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe Orach Chayim vol. 1 #46) when asked about the placement of flags (Israel and USA) in synagogues and people's staunch opposition to it, concluded that there was not much significance to it and one should not fight over placing it in a shul.



Rabbi Soloveitchik and both Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook, and his son, Rav Tzvi Yehudah Kook, however, found great spirituality in the flag.



Someone wrote to Rav Tzvi Yehudah asking if having an Israeli flag violated the Biblical prohibition of following the ways of the non-Jews (uv'chukoseihem lo seileichu). Rav Tzvi Yehudah advised the writer to repent from this crookedness. He cited the Biblical model of flags and wrote about the Biblical mandate (according to Ramban) to settle and conquer the land.



During World War I, in a political and strategic maneuver by Ze'ev Jabotinsky and Joseph Trumpeldor, a Jewish division of the British army was formed in 1915 which fought in His Majesty's army. Like any military division, it sponsored its own flag. After the war was won, the Crown agreed to a ceremony placing the flag in the Hurva Synagogue, the main synagogue of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. Remember that the British Mandate extended over Palestine from the end of World War I, when they won it from the Turks, until the mandate's end in May of 1948. The ceremony, which was attended by emissaries of the Crown and the Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Hakohen Kook, took place on the 30th of Kislev 5686, corresponding to December 17, 1925. In the Chief Rabbi's address, in which he read a prayer he composed for the occasion, he stressed that a flag has historical roots among the Jewish people. His speech cited the verse in Psalms (20:6): “May we rejoice in your salvation, and in the name of our God set up our banners! May the Lord fulfil all your petitions.” Rav Kook directly correlated military flags to the flags of the tribes in the wilderness. He found it wholly appropriate to be safeguarded in a synagogue. He pointed out that those who opposed the event registered protest to the presence in shul of the Union Jack, which contains a cross. The opposition was not to the flag of the British Jewish unit. Rav Kook also argued that the flag represents our march towards ultimate redemption and signifies the international unity behind the Zionist enterprise. The flag also represents those Jews who gave their lives in battle.



On this topic, three decades later, Rabbi Soloveitchik offered an unbelievable new level of significance.



The Rav was bothered when he heard that at an Agudah Israel convention in Jerusalem, an allowance was made to fly the Israeli flag, only if it flew along with the flags of all the other nations represented in the convention. In his Lithuanian-halachic style, he commented:



Only our movement (Mizrachi/Religious Zionism) expressed itself unequivocally for the State of Israel and granted it halachic status. Other religious movements are still researching the subject by, as it were, the halachic doubt of doubts. First doubt, does a State of Israel exist? Second doubt if it does, do we accept it or not? This attitude leads to their occasional involvement with paradoxes, such as whether it is permitted to wave a blue and white flag or not. After much give and take they decided leniently. A sort of hechsher (religious certification) was granted to the flag in that it was permitted to wave it together with other flags, as for example the British flag which fluttered from the mastheads of British guard ships which patrolled the coastline of Eretz Yisrael during the bitter, dark forties so that escapees from Hitler's concentration camps should not slip through, and beneath which flag British ships sank the Struma and Patria.



I want to add something. If you ask me, how do I, a Talmudic Jew, look upon the flag of the State of Israel, and has it any halachic value? - I would answer plainly. I do not hold at all with the magical attraction of a flag or of similar symbolic ceremonies. Judaism negates ritual connected with physical things. Nonetheless, we must not lose sight of a law in the Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law) to the effect that: “one who has been killed by non-Jews is buried in his clothes, so that his blood may be seen and avenged… In other words, the clothes of the Jew acquire a certain sanctity when spattered with the blood of a martyr. How much more is this so of the blue and white flag, which has been immersed in the blood of thousands of young Jews who fell in the War of Independence defending the country and the population (religious and irreligious alike; the enemy did not differentiate between them). It has a spark of sanctity that flows from devotion and self-sacrifice. We are all enjoined to honor the flag and treat it with respect. It does not require a hechsher from the non-Jewish Union-Jack!


[Chamesh Drashot (English) pp. 138-139]



The concept of flags in Judaism goes back even further than the encampments in the wilderness. Rashi (Bamidbar2:2) cites the Midrash which identifies these flags as the flags which Yaakov provided with each of his sons. So the decorations and coats of arms find their source much earlier.



To the best of my reading of Tanach (Scripture) I'm not familiar with any flags that Yaakov transmitted to his sons. What he did do is, in the presence of all of them, direct his thoughts quasi-prophetically to each one, describing their unique role in the nation. Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky pointed out that he did this when all were present so each tribe would learn of the utility and contribution of all the tribes, not just their own.



He provided them their missions. That is the meaning of the flags of Yaakov.



But our sages inform us that we again see flags about two centuries after the death of Yaakov.



The Ramban (Shmos 14:5) states that the Jews left Egypt with flags, “like people who are redeemed from bondage to freedom, and not like slaves who expect to return to their servitude. All this was told to Pharaoh.”



Flags also play a major role at Revelation at Sinai, which we re-enact and commemorate in a few days on the holiday of Shavuos. The Midrash Tanchuma (Bamidbar 14) teaches us that when God revealed Himself to the Jewish nation, 220,000 angels accompanied Him (22 divisions of 10,000) and they made flags to wave. When the Israelites saw this, they became a little jealous and they too wanted to make flags. Hashem, out of love for His beloved nation, instructed Moshe to craft flags.



Why does this Midrash relate that the angels were carrying the flags? I guess they are God's entourage and, as such, the flag-bearers. But I believe there is a deeper meaning, one I heard from Rabbi Ally Ehrman. The Hebrew word for angel, malach, means messenger, one sent on a mission. Angels are task-focused. They are given a job and execute it. For this reason one angel cannot perform two simultaneous tasks. Each one is unique with a special job to perform. Rabbi Hirsch associates the Hebrew word mal'ach, with the word m'lacha, the prohibited productive acts forbidden on the Sabbath. The angels, who personify the concept of a mission, were holding flags, expressing the fact that each Jew should accept and undertake his very unique and focused mission.



When we pray for salvation, we ask God to create a flagpole (v'sa nes l'kabetz galuyoseinu) to ingather the exiles (the Amidah). May our acceptance of our national mission, of our individual missions and recognition of the mission statement of Torah we remember this Shavuos lead us to wave the ultimate flag of salvation. May every Jew find his flag. Just like the flagman tells you when to go and when to stop, the flag should keep us focused on our mission, the Mission of the Jew that we received from God on Mount Sinai.


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the connection between flags and the Jews goes way past the establishment of the state in 1948. Our tradition saw flags before the wilderness as well. Let's journey back to the death of Yaakov, the exodus and Revelation at Sinai. Let's visit Rav Kook in 1925 and fast forward to a modern day state visit to Israel.

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