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

Contributor(s):

Mordecai Kaplan, Eugene Kohn, John Paul Williams and Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription)

Shared on:

14 June 2023 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

US Flag Day (June 14)

Tags:

English vernacular prayer, civic prayers, American Jewry of the United States, 20th century C.E., ecumenical prayers, United States, 58th century A.M.

TOGGLE COLUMNS (on/off):

ADJUST COLUMN POSITIONS: select the column header cell and drag it where you want. show me!

COPY INDIVIDUAL COLUMN(S): use CopyTables, a browser extension.

TABLE HELP

Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	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

Source(s)

Notes[+]

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

. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike . 4.0 . International .

“Opening Prayer on the Significance of Flag Day, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, J. Paul Williams, and Eugene Kohn (1951)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Mordecai Kaplan

Mordecai Menahem Kaplan (June 11, 1881 – November 8, 1983), was a rabbi, essayist and Jewish educator and the co-founder of Reconstructionist Judaism along with his son-in-law Ira Eisenstein.

Eugene Kohn

Eugene Kohn (January 26, 1887 - April 1, 1977) was an American Reconstructionist rabbi, writer and editor. Born in Newark, New Jersey he attended the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and in 1912 received ordination. It was here that he met Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan who taught him homiletics. Between 1912 and 1939 he served as a congregational rabbi in Conservative synagogues in the U.S. states of Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Wisconsin and Ohio. He also served as the president of the Rabbinical Assembly 1936-1937. He played a central role in the Reconstructionist movement. He edited its journal The Reconstructionist and, alongside Kaplan and Ira Eisenstein, edited The New Haggadah (1941), The Sabbath Prayer Book (1945) and The Reconstructionist Prayer Book (1948). Alongside Jack Cohen, Eisenstein and Milton Steinberg he was one of Kaplan's main disciples.

John Paul Williams

Dr. John Paul Williams (1900-1973) was chairman of the department of religion at Mount Holyoke College. In 1946, he served as president of the National Association of Biblical Instructors (now known as the American Academy of Religion). He wrote What Americans Believe and How They Worship (1952, revised 1962) containing the chapter "Judaism -- the Mother Institution." Together with Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan and Eugene Kohn he co-authored the anthology of civic prayers, Faith in America (1951).

Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also translates prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)

Pocket Pinterest Reddit 𝕏 Facebook Telegram WhatsApp SMS Email

Works of related interest:

Arbor Day, Wild Animal Park, U.S. Forest Service Employee, Susan Blankenbaker with Woodsy Owl, U.S. Forest Service Employee, Robert Sanders and Children (ca. 1979-1986)

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

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

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

Opening Prayer on the Significance of Lincoln’s Birthday, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, J. Paul Williams, and Eugene Kohn (1951)

Opening Prayer on the Significance of Washington’s Birthday, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, J. Paul Williams, and Eugene Kohn (1951)

Two girls at the Labor Day parade wearing ILGWU union label dresses (Kheel Center 1960, CC BY)

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

Flag Lowering (Hebrew Orphan Asylum of the City of New York, I-42) in the collection of the American Jewish Historical Society

Closing Ceremony for Flag Day, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, J. Paul Williams, and Eugene Kohn (1951)

prev next

Comments, Corrections, and QueriesCancel reply

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=51664

Associated Image:

Flag of the United States with star sizes relative to population (OmarZlada 2021)

(This image is set to automatically show as the "featured image" in shared links on social media.)

Source Data: XML | JSON

Re-formatted: HTML | ODT

Terms of Use: Be a mentsch (a conscientious, considerate person) and adhere to the following guidelines:

Properly attribute the work to Mordecai Kaplan, Eugene Kohn, John Paul Williams and Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription).
Clearly indicate the date you accessed the work and in what ways, if any, you modified it. (If you have adapted the work, let us know so that the contributor might consider endorsing your revision.)
Provide the stable link to this resource: <https://opensiddur.org/?p=51664>.
Indicate that the original work was shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license. (To redistribute or remix this work in any format, modified or unmodified, you must refer to the terms of the license under which the work is shared.)

Additional Notes:

The views expressed in this work represent the views of their creator(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Open Siddur Project's developers, its diverse community of volunteer contributors, or its institutional partners.
We strongly advise against printing sacred texts and art containing divine names as these copies must be regarded with reverence, complicating their casual treatment and disposal.
If you must dispose of a printed sacred text (one containing Divine Names), please locate the closest genizah (often established by a synagogue) and contact its custodians for further instructions. We also recommend using Morah Yehudis Fishman's Prayer for Adding a Work to the Genizah.

Support this work: The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, non-commercial, non-denominational, non-prescriptive, gratis & libre Open Access archive of contemplative praxes, liturgical readings, and Jewish prayer literature (historic and contemporary, familiar and obscure) composed in every era, region, and language Jews have ever prayed. Our goal is to provide a platform for sharing open-source resources, tools, and content for individuals and communities crafting their own prayerbook (siddur). Through this we hope to empower personal autonomy, preserve customs, and foster creativity in religious culture.

ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." –Psalms 90:17