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Opening Prayer on the Significance of Flag Day, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, J. Paul Williams, and Eugene Kohn (1951)

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On the fourteenth day of June in the year 1780,
the flag of our nation was born.
On that day the Congress of the United States resolved
“that the flag of the thirteen United States
be thirteen stripes,
alternate red and white;
that the Union be thirteen stars,
white in a blue field,
representing a new constellation.”[1] As stated in the “Flag Resolution” passed by the Second Continental Congress on 14 June 1777. 
Today we celebrate the anniversary of that event.
Today, over a vast territory
and over the hearts of many millions of people
that emblem holds sway,
a symbol endowed
with immeasurable potency
to evoke loyalty,
heroism,
and self-sacrifice.
We are assembled to renew our allegiance
to the flag and to all that it symbolizes.
We are not idolaters.
Our homage is not to the flag
as a piece of colored cloth.
It is to what the flag means in our life
and the life of mankind;
to the land, the persons, the institutions,
the laws, the ideals, the human relationships
that the flag betokens.
To these our loyalty is directed,
and upon these we invoke the blessing of God.
Grant, O God,
that the display of our national emblem
move us so to live that we may never disgrace it,
but always reflect honor upon it.
May our flag forever remain
the symbol of a nation
dedicated to freedom,
justice,
and the well-being of all mankind.

This opening prayer for Flag Day, “The Significance of the Day,” was first published in The Faith of America: Readings, Songs, and Prayers for the Celebration of American Holidays (Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation 1951), p. 117

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Notes

Notes
1As stated in the “Flag Resolution” passed by the Second Continental Congress on 14 June 1777.

 

 

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