Rabbi Sherman is on sabbatical. Please enjoy an Honorable Mensch-Ion from our Rabbinic Intern, Moe Howard.

Is the Israeli flag a religious symbol? The American flag? While some might say “yes” to the former, most would say “no” to the latter. Yet both stand on the bimah of every synagogue in this country, flanking either side of the holy ark. Are they misplaced?

Maybe not. Turns out the flags in our sanctuaries aren’t the first to stand beside an ark. We read in Bamidbar:

“The Israelites shall camp each with his standard (diglo), under the banners of their ancestral house; they shall camp around the Tent of Meeting at a distance.” (Numbers 2:2)

The twelve tribes surrounded the Tent, itself housing the Ark of the Covenant, each one bearing its degel, its flag. While the Torah presents harmony, the Midrash imagines strife: Moses frets that the tribes will argue about their placements around the Ark—much like some today argue about the placement of flags beside it. A degel is as rallying as it can be divisive.

But there is another Hebrew word for a banner atop a pole: nes—the same word for “miracle.” It is a nes that heals the people from a rash of fiery snake bites (stay tuned); a nes, as Isaiah prophesied,that leads them back to their land after seventy years of exile; a nes that marked their and our return to national sovereignty after two millennia. So too, it is a red, white, and blue nes that has proclaimed the promise of freedom under God for two and a half centuries.

Seen merely as standards, the flags on our bimah are out of place. Seen for the miracles they stand for, they belong no place else.

Shabbat Shalom