Shield Verses

There's a lengthy discussion about Stars of David on the forum of Ancient Hebrew Research Center administrated by Miriam from Birmingham, England. Miriam wonders what we can learn from the verses about the Lord being Israel's shield: 

Genesis 15:1  

Deuteronomy 33:29

2 Samuel 22:36

Psalm 5:12

Psalm 18:35

Psalm 59:11

Psalm 84:9

Psalm 91:4

Psalm 119:114

Well, Miriam, IMHO the Star of David symbolizes exactly this idea: that the Lord is Israel's shield and not one's own strength.  King David defeated Goliath BECAUSE the Lord was his Shield. The struggle between the belief in physical and spiritual power is expressed in the clearest way in 1Sa 17:45:

 

"Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied".

 

In the Star of David one triangle point up while the other point to the opposite direction. The physical and the spiritual are opposites that live together in the same shape which symbolizes the unity of the opposites.

 

Pay attention to the fact that most of the verses come from Psalms which, according to the Jewish tradition, were written by King David.

 

Male and Female

My wife was so influenced by the content of this blog that when she needed to write a quick blessing for the wedding of her colleagues the first shape that jumped to her consciousness was the Star of David. After she finished drawing she added four words: "Bride"; "Groom"; "Two" (which sounds like to); "Gather" (which sounds like the other half of together). I understood this as a blessing for the bride and groom to stay together;like two triangles that become one in the shape of the Magen David.

The following paragraph is from Dr. Asher Eder’s book The Star of David, which was published in 1987 in English in Jerusalem by Rubin Mass Ltd. The publication here is courtesy of Oren Mass

As for the Male-female relationship, the Torah uses a different expression for animals than it does for humans. Concerning the animals, after they were brought forth from the earth each after its kind, the Torah simply says that they should be fruitful and multiply, with God's blessing. Consequently, Noah was to take into the ark male and female of each kind for propagation.
As for the human race, we read in Gen, 1:27: "And God created Adam in his image...male and female created he them", which implies that Adam is the spiritual archetype expressed in both male and female form.
Moreover, it is said that

Adam knew Eve his wife

  By this term, the Torah sets a standard for the human race which cannot be found in the animal kingdom. We would never say that animals know one another, nor would we use the word "love" for their relationships. The cock does not love the hen; the stallion does not love the mare; the bull does not love the cow. Even the relationships of animals or birds which stay together as couples, such as doves, cannot really be described as love. Love has a property of will.
Relationships on the animal level could be depicted by a line connecting two dots standing for the two sexual poles

Since the relationship of a human couple consists of much more that carnal instincts, we cannot depict it in this way. Humans have intellect and spirit, besides instinct and feelings.
It is by these properties that we are led on the one hand to a feeling of separation from one another and from the rest of Creation, but paradoxically why we also want to know and unite with one another.
If Spirit, intellect and feeling are balanced, we can depict the energy field they form by an equilateral triangle. In a harmonious love, the two triangles symbolize the two partners joining and interweaving as in our six-pointed star.
The Hebrew language helps to specify this relationship even more precisely. There, the word for man is איש , eesh; and for his wife it is אשה , eeshah. The word אישis characterized by the sign, י yod, which stands for hand, or strength; while the word אשה is characterized by the sign ,ה heh, which stands for the receptive, feminine aspect. Both signs together form the word ,יה yah, God, Lord, indicating that both aspects are united in the Cretaor of all, and should be united in a couple. The word yah is known to most readers from the word halleluyah, praise ye the Lord.

This diagram shows the togetherness and equivalence of man and wife, symbolized here by the two triangles, notwithstanding the different functions of both partners. However, if the Divine element as expressed by the word yah is missing in a couple's relationship, i.e. if י , yod, and ה , heh, are absent, only אש , esh, fire remains. This fire can be the fire of passion, which burns only as long as there is "fuel", or it can be the fire of conflict.

If the Divine aspect should be absent, or dim, in one partner, the Divine aspect of the other may bring about a (re)enlivening of the former, and restore the wholeness as symbolized by the star.
Marriage, like all other aspects of life, is not a fixed state of constant bliss; it is a constant journey towards oneness. Man and woman, who are two in our created world of polarities, are to become one again by their union: true Adam. Our star symbolizes this. Composed of the two triangles, it is yet one.
To sum up, the six-pointed star is the model of a harmonious balance of the poles of any field, as indicated by its two equilateral, symmetrically interwoven triangles. Each triangle plays a role, but has no priority or precedence over the other. This is true for the Creator-Creation polarity as well as for the polarities within the created world, including the husband-wife relationship.

Jewish Gang Symbol

I read the Sermon Rabbi Samuel M. Stahl wrote about the Star of David and there was the story about the Jewish Gang symbol: On August 1998 the board of Harrison Central High School in Gulfport Mississippi told fifteen-year-old student Ryan Green not to wear his Star of David since it might be interpreted as a gang symbol. 

Broken Star of David

In Tsarskoe Selo (Pushkin), 20 miles south of St. Petersburg, Jewish sculptor Vadim Sidur (1924 - 1986) built a monument entitled " “The Formula of Sorrow”, to commemorate the deaths of 10,000 local Jews during the Nazi occupation. The monument is comprised of abstract letters “J” and “D” denoting the word Jude. A broken Star of David completes the monument.

A broken Star of David appears also in the architect Daniel Libeskind design of the Jewish Museum in Berlin.

Leningrad Codex

The Leningrad Codex contains sixteen decorative geometric patterns of medieval Jewish art. One of them, the cover page, shows a Star of David in a square while the square is in a circle. There are Hebrew verses from the Bible around the star and the square, and in the center of the Star there's a dedication of the book to the writer's teacher.

The Leningrad Codex is the oldest surviving complete copy of the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible, written by Shmuel ben Ya'akov in Egypt in 1008.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia entry: Leningrad Codex

Synonyms

The term Star of David has many synonyms and that's one of the obstacles on the way to collect information about it. These synonyms are sometimes relating to similar or even identical shapes in other cultures, which bear other meanings, but because of the similarity of the shapes people tend to label them with the same name. Life could have been easier if everybody used one term…

 Magen David (Hebrew) or Mogen Dovid (Ashkenazi Hebrew) or Shield of David or David's Star or Jewish Star (Judenster, Yellow Patch) is a six-pointed star created from two equilateral triangles and is known as the symbol of Judaism.

Solomon's seal or Seal of Solomon was according to Jewish Islamic and Christian legends King Solomon's signet ring that gave him the power to command demons.  It is in the shape of five pointed stars (pentagram) or six pointed stars.

Estoile is a six-pointed star with wavy rays. There are estoiles with eight points and others with four points like Cross estoile.

Mullet (or molet) is a six-pointed star with straight rays. In English it is heraldry with five straight points and in French it is heraldry with six points. Mullet of eight points is called octagram.

Hexagon in Greek means: having six angles; a polygon with six sides.

Hexagram is a six-pointed star formed by extending each of the sides of a regular hexagon to form two equilateral triangles.

Hexahedron is a polyhedron that has six faces (like a cube).

Chinese checkers is a board game for two to six people. Each player tries to jump his marbles from one point of a six-pointed star shaped board to the opposite point. It is not a Chinese game – it got its name in the United States to make it sound more exotic. 

Shatkona (Yantra) is an Indian yoga "superposition of two triangles, one pointing upwards and the other downwards, forming a star with six points, also known as David's Star. This form symbolically represents the union of purusha and prakriti or Shiva-Shakti, without which there could be no creation". 

Flag Proposals

Santiago Dotor edited a web page about the Israeli flag proposals in 1948. I found there a few interesting things about Stars of David:

1. Nissim Sabbah of Tel Aviv proposed two blue stripes, a white background, a Star of David in the middle and seven gold stars.
2. Mordechai Nimtza-bi proposed in a book entitled The Flag 8 variations, designed by Zeljko Heimer, which were not accepted. All proposals included a Star of David.
3. Oteh Walisch, graphic artist, proposed seven golden Stars of David.
4. 164 people participated in a competition announced on 10 June 1948 by the committee for considering the flag question. These participants submitted 450 designs. The text of the Call for Proposals stated clearly that each proposal should include "Magen-David, or seven stars (gold or other color) [but] any other proposal or idea would be accepted for consideration as well"