Flags of Our Children
Morah Margo Markowitz had been at the Nachmanides School in Piscataway forever. She was on her second generation of kindergarteners in some families, and many of the parents swore she looked exactly the same as when she was their teacher. Rumor had it among the students that when they opened the doors of the school for the first time, way back in the 1950's, they found Morah Margo standing inside the entranceway, but actually she had been at the school for only thirty-four years.
Among the revered traditions of the Markowitz classroom was Morah Margo's Funky Flag Festival. Every year, about a week before Succot, the children were sent home with a large piece of felt attached to a stick and told to make a flag that they would dance with on Simchat Torah. The felt came in purple, green, blue, and pink, but other than that, the design of the flag was completely up to the children. The kindergarteners were encouraged to make it a family project. They were told to brainstorm with their whole ganze mishpocha to create the flag. On Chol Hamoed of Succot they brought their flags into class and, after a brief presentation of their design, they had an ice cream party and danced with them.
Over the years, a few classic flags had taken their place in Flag Festival history. The 2002 flag of Mount Sinai with Rivka Goldstein portraying herself as Moshe Rabbeinu was a definite crowd pleaser. The 1987 Barney the Dinosaur dancing with the Torah was also quite popular. Even the 1975 tie dyed rendition of tohu vavohu and Hashem creating the world evoked much comment. But the all time favorite was the topographic map of Israel made from pasta (the Dead Sea was a lasagna noodle and Mount Hermon was fusilli).
This year's group of kindergarteners looked to be a promising class. They were bright eyed, adventurous, and filled with imagination. They made it through the shofar making factory and the Yom Kippur practice drill (one hour in class with no snacks) with true aplomb. Now they were ready for the Funky Flag Festival. Morah Margo distributed the felt flags and sent them on their way. Of the class of eighteen, six chose pink, five purple, four blue , and three green. Each flag came with a complementary party bag, for any incidental Simchat Torah candy collections, sponsored by Gooey Gelt, the local kosher confectionary emporium in nearby Sayreville, and by Marc Shapiro, DDS.
Class went on with its usual academic rigor, such as circle time and succah decorating 101, and after a week passed, the time came for the festival. The children brought parents and grandparents to witness the festivities.
Each child stood before the class and described their flag to the wild applause of the crowd, particularly his or her family members. Six children had gone with the classic Torah motif. Two went with pastel shades, one with earth tones, and one witha preponderance of glitter. The last Torah flag had fringes hanging over a velvet cover and had written on it, "Donated by the Stein family in honor of Danny's birthday."
Three children had drawn cartoon characters on their flags, lending the festival a Thanksgiving Day Parade feeling. Dorah the Explorer, Thomas the Tank Engine, and the Power rangers all made an appearance.
Three children went with family portraits or just drawings of themselves. One included the family dog, and another the family guinea pig, Lucky.
Two children had gone with abstract designs. One was a series of swirls and dots reminiscent of a Jackson Pollack, and the other did a purple pastiche of finger painting, more suggestive of a Mark Rothko.
One little boy named Zev came up with an unusual design. His flag was a variation on the American Stars and Stripes, with the stripes in blue and white and the background of the stars in red. Instead of fifty stars, there were fifty-two individually painted little Torahs. When Zev stood up to describe his flag, a man in the audience, presumably his grandfather, sat near the edge of the stage, coaching Zev with his presentation.
"I'd like to thank my Zayde for helping me to make my flag," said Zev. "My flag is a model of the American flag. But we made it special in honor of my family. When my Bubbe and Zayde came to this country, they came from..." Zev turned to his grandfather.
"Checkoslovakia."
"Chrekoslomania," said Zev. "They had to run from bad people, and they came here with nothing. Now they have a lot."
"The blue and white stripes are in honor of Israel. The fifty-two Torahs are for the fifty-two weeks a year we read the Torah in shul. Thank you Bubbe for helping me color the Torahs."
Bubbe stood up and waved, to the applause of the crowd.
"Each Torah is colored different, because we can learn something new from the Torah every week. Thank you."
The last child to present was a little girl named Maya. She was a small, blonde girl in a pink dress and patent leather shoes, wearing five plastic necklaces and three bracelets on each wrist. On her flag she had drawn a large circle of people dancing with the Torah. All the dancers were drawn in fine detail, with dolls clothes glued to to their bodies for authenticity. All the figures in the drawing had photographs of classmates and family members stuck onto their shoulders. Even Morah Margo was pictured in the scene. Clad in Barbie's best, she stood in the middle of the circle, leading the singing.
"My flag is everybody singing and dancing on Simchat Torah," Maya said. "Because that's what Simchat Torah is about. Being happy with the Torah, with all my family and friends."
"Wow," said Morah Margo. And the whole room erupted in applause.
After the ice cream party, everyone sang and danced with their flags, with Morah Margo leading the singing, just as Maya had pictured. And a Simchat Torah was had by all.
Comments