Raise Your Flag - Parshat Bamidbar

Do you have a favorite baseball team? How about a college football team? Do you (or did you as a kid) fly their banner at home? Every single country, every state, every city and almost every township has its own flag.

I am constantly fascinated when the Holy Torah takes a turn towards the banal. It is so concerned with moral behavior and holiness and beauty then why does it busy itself with minutiae? And yet this happens time and again and I am in search for an explanation. Why??

This parsha, Parshat Bamidbar, does the same thing. It starts talking about tribal flags. Each tribe had its own flag with its own colors and symbols.1 Why was this necessary? And even if it was done, does ti warrant being mentioned in the Torah? The Netivot asks the same question. (I am always glad that someone else writes about my question – it generally means that it was a good question.) He answers that every nation has its own flag to differentiate it from other nations. Similarly each branch of the army has its own banner to differentiate it from the other branches. And then he adds, that each individual soldier has a sign to know what his job is in the team. The local chief rabbi, Rav Halevi, said that this is true for every individual as well. We each have our flags to carry. We each have our own personal meaning and reason for being.

How do we find our flag?  It is not always easy. Start with that which brings you joy. Not pleasure. Joy. After all, as Elisabeth Lukas wrote, the more we experience joy, "the more strength our organism retains for staying healthy.2 If that works, you will know.

You may not always feel that you have the strength to pick up that flag or even to look for it. And that may be ok for a while. But the ultimate goal is to live life. To find that flag. As the pop song goes:

            So just raise your flag

            No matter how many times you feel crushed and lose your way

            To the limits of your breath…

            For as long as you can keep going

                                                            Man With a Mission; Raise your Flag

Wave your flag! You are here for a reason. No one else has that same reason for being here. It is to be your flag. No one else's. Be proud of it.

What is your flag? Find it and raise it and yourself to your highest heights.

Click here for another logoParsha blog on Parshat Bamidbar

Notes

  1. Bamidbar Chapter 2.
  2. Lukas, Meaning in suffering, p.89. Lukas is a leading, world-renowned logotherapist and student of Viktor Frankl.

 

 

Have A Great Shabbat!laughing

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