Rallying Around the Flag

Since time immemorial, flags have served as markers of identity, unity, and purpose. At the opening of the second chapter of Bemidbar (Numbers), God commands the children of Israel to organize themselves by tribe around the Ohel Moed (Tent of Meeting), each tribe under its designated flag:

The Lord spoke to Moshe and Aharon, saying: The Israelites shall camp each with his standard (degel), under the banners of their ancestral house; they shall camp around the Tent of Meeting at a distance. (Numbers 2:1–2)

The obvious purpose of these flags was organizational, while also fostering a sense of tribal identity. Since the Torah itself does not describe the appearance of the flags, later tradition was given wide latitude to speculate about their nature. A few examples illustrate this diversity of interpretation: Rashi, basing himself on a midrash, explains that each tribe’s flag bore the color of the stone associated with that tribe on the High Priest’s breastplate. Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir (Rashbam), Rashi’s grandson, understood the flags as displaying tribal symbols, while Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra suggested that they depicted emblematic scenes from the lives of the tribal ancestors.

One midrash, however, takes a very different approach to the significance of these flags. Rather than associating them with tribal symbols, it sees in them the expression of a provocative and inspiring religious idea by linking the word degel (“flag”) with a verse from Psalms that uses the same root:

May we shout for joy in Your salvation, and raise flags in the name of our God. (Psalms 20:6)

This verse, together with a creative reading of a passage describing the redemption from Egypt, leads the midrash to understand Israel’s redemption as, in some sense, God’s redemption as well:

“‘Each with his flag (degel)…’ — as it is written: ‘We will sing with joy in Your salvation and raise flags (nidgol) in the name of our God’ (Psalms 20:6). Israel said before the Holy One, blessed be He: ‘We rejoice in Your salvation, in what You have done on our behalf through Your name.’ … ‘The Lord saved Israel on that day’ (Exodus 14:30). The word vayosha may be read as though Israel was saved and, as it were, as if God Himself was saved (vayivasha) as well. ‘And raise banners in the name of our God’ — because the Holy One, blessed be He, joined His name to ours and arranged us under banners, as it is stated: ‘Each with his banner.’” (Bemidbar Rabbah 2:2)

In this striking interpretation, the flags are not merely tribal insignia or practical markers of encampment. They symbolize the intimate bond between God and Israel. Israel’s destiny is so deeply intertwined with the divine presence in the world that its redemption becomes, as it were, a redemption of God’s name as well. The banners surrounding the Tent of Meeting thus proclaim not only the identity of the tribes, but also the shared covenantal mission that binds God and Israel together.

This vision of divine-human intimacy lies at the heart of the Jewish religious experience. In an age in which so many struggle with existential loneliness and alienation, the midrash reminds us that Judaism envisions human life as lived in relationship — not only with one another, but with God as well. To live beneath the banner of Israel is to affirm that we are neither abandoned nor alone, but participants in a covenantal destiny that gives meaning, responsibility, and hope. It is a flag well worth rallying around.