Banners & Miracles Awaiting Our Deed
“The State of Israel was established so Jews could determine their own fate, to fight and defeat their enemies, not to be human dust but to turn their enemies to dust. The State of Israel can fulfill this mission and therefore at least in this regard [can be] the realization of generations of dreams. But as long as its leaders are of the race of Flavius [rather than the race of Bar Kokhba], they may turn Israel over to the worst of its enemies…” – Dr. Arieh Eldad, “Israel at 2000 and 60” [emphasis added] *
In the Hebrew language and consciousness, a flag is a miracle (nais), a banner snapping against the sky to arouse to wonder and thus empower those who experience it.
The modern State of Israel from its beginning has the wrong flag because it has the wrong leaders, socialists and multicultural globalists who suppress and would obliterate the Jewish substance that alone gives the State meaning and life. Great structural changes to save the nation and people of Israel can begin with designing, disseminating and displaying the truth and national pride of the Children of Israel.
The symbol of Israel from most ancient times is the Menorah for Israel testifies to the Creator and the purposefulness of life and history. The Menorah awakens people to the Matzui Rishon, the Primary Being as the primary fact of life, the generosity and order that establish abundance and coherence.
The flag of Israel is a golden Menorah on a field of white with a thin blue stripe inset from its border edge; the blue of the infinitely remote, — in space, time and concept — ‘place’ where the life energy of the Creator appeared and initiated the universe.
The mission of Israel as a witness and teacher of this fact and these qualities, the basis both of science and wonder was set forth at Sinai. There the Eternal One, the Highest Wisdom brought the people He chose to receive his teachings for sanctifying the world. Israel living on its land with its mission is like a banner arousing the nations to awe and respect. Therefore, another flag of Israel shows the tablets of the law flanked by the lions of Judah, rampant on a blue field, for Judah has royalty.
These flags must be displayed prominently in Jerusalem and in every Jewish settlement in the land of Israel which is a “daughter of Israel” married to a Jewish “son of Eve.” The Eternal speaks to the land Israel saying, “you shall clothe yourself with them like jewelry and adorn yourself like a bride…and those who would devour you will be distanced” [1].
And Israel again will learn preemption, honor and deterrence as taught in Torah, Rambam and other great sages. Whenever Israel is attacked or even threatened it requires mandatory war, milchemet mitzvah to secure peace.
In every generation the world rises up to destroy Israel and the Jews because most people, leaders especially with their fixation on power, cannot abide the testimony of Israel to the Eternal One and to the logic and purpose of history and creation. They would rather be fiddling with it, and with people to suit themselves and their ambitions to be as gods. In the Modern period, the ideology of the West, the dominant culture, is increasingly about forgetting, about burial of history and the past, about the radical reformation of family, gender, social relationships, the nature of humanity and its relation to the Creator. Israel embodies remembrance and history. So it must proclaim its history, the root-sparks of its integrity on banners seen brilliantly against the sky: this is Jewish strength, self-respect, honor and witness of the Highest Wisdom and our role in creation.
Thus, in every tribal territory, in additional to the national flags that teach science and morality, the first principles (reisheet) and holiness in life, Israel must fly the tribal banners in every settlement. The lion of Judah, the radiant hind of Naphtali, the viper of Dan (“don’t tread on me” as the US Navy flag adapted from this message and blessing proclaims), the silhouette of Shechem on the banner of Shimon, the ships of Zevulun, the olive tree of Asher, green on gold must fly everywhere reminding everyone who we are and where we are rooted by the Master and Maker of all things. More than any speeches, legal pleadings, ‘negotiations’ and declarations these banners will establish Israel in its place, deter the devourers and lift up a banner of honor, remembrance and identity to the exiles.
These uplifted miracles are the counterpart of the lovers of the land that walk it, pitch tents, cook meals and deepen the marriage of the Land and the People. They are these flags and they should carry the flags of the true Israel, the Israel of Sinai and Jerusalem and the entire nation.
Every day, for the same purposes, a brace of shofars should be sounded by these miracles, bannered against the sky. And we will see the sound, recalling the first time we knew ourselves as a precious and unique holy nation (Exodus 19:3-6, 16-20; 20:15).
Against the gathering darkness of our times, in every settlement and at every guard post in Yehudah and the Shomron there should fly the banner of the lion and the ox, a golden lion of Judah rampant on a blue field, vertical, next to the black ox on a red field of Joseph to remind us all of Ezekiel’s stirring prophecy of redemption and the embodiment of mitzvah yichud, the deed that goes with the prophecy and prayer: Judah and Joseph and their brothers with them, “one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel,” the heart of the heartland [2].
Last but not least, to fulfill Israel’s teaching mission, every day leaders of the heartland must proclaim their brotherhood and unity with all the Jewish people everywhere, especially those living in the State which so greatly needs to return to its root and strength. The oligarchs who grind down the Jewish people can be overcome by these myriad banners of identity and love and by the verbal declaration that “we are all brothers, sons of one man.” Jews of the heartland, tell them everywhere in the land and in the exile, we will never forsake you; we are one as Hashem is One [3].
People rally round a flag. Flags and the declaration of unity can be a rallying center for all those who know that the Land of Israel is for the People of Israel and only together can they flourish in the derekh Yehudi, an example for the world. A united front of all those who embrace this hope is necessary to resist, expose and undo the false collective that the looming “National Unity Government” by which the oligarchs would squash the heart of the heartland and bury the banners of Israel, its history & witness; and beyond that, to resist the new world religion to which Tony Blair’s high-powered “Faith Foundation” has just leant its weight [4].
The world can be inspired and reminded of the providence of Israel; it can learn, and the burden of madness will lift from its rulers. “The earth will yield its produce. May God, our God bless us and all the ends of the earth will know awe of Him” [5].
The Hope persists; make the banners and raise them now: activate the miracle and the redemption.
* The opening quote from Dr. Eldad recalls a critical debate in 1936-7 and a defeatist comment by Chaim Weizmann, proponent of minimal Zionism. Zev Jabotinsky, founder of the Jewish Legion and tireless worker to insure that Britain fulfill its legal obligation to “facilitate Jewish immigration” to the Promised Land called for immediate action to bring at least three million European Jews to Israel. Weizmann offered a defeatist apologia for the British refusal by referring to his millions of brethren as “dust in a cruel wind.”
1. Rav Yitzhak Ginsburgh, Rectifying the State of Israel (Gal Einai 2003), 78-80, 120-4, 178-9
2. Ezekiel 37:15-28
3. Genesis 42:11, 32
4. London Times online, May 30, 2008; 5. Psalm 67: 7-8