 As most of us realize, this is one of the most widely recognized symbols in all of Jewish culture. And what I want to look at tonight is the origins of such a symbol and where it might come from. Unfortunately, there isn't any real direct reference to the Jewish star, the Magin David, in any of our biblical literature or Talmudic literature, even in our Kabbalistic and Midrashic literature. And one of the things that I've noticed in the work that I do is that many people who have an unhealthy disdain for anything they can't see explicitly taught in the Bible insist that this symbol, the star of David, is rooted either in pagan idolatry or in Satanism. That's unfortunate. And even the famous Jewish philosopher and academic Gershom Sholom, who passed away in 1982, was a scholar who insisted that the Magin David was not a Jewish symbol at all. And he refused to accept the idea that there was any connection between the star of David, the Magin David, and Judaism to speak of. And so tonight we're going to try to, at least in a cursory way, look at some of the history of this symbol. Rabbi Trugman has an excellent work called the Magin David, which deals with, on many levels, the symbolism of the star of David. And what he suggests is that this is a symbol that evolved over a long period of time. Now the earliest reference that will be helpful to us tonight really goes back to the story of Abraham. In the beginning of the story of Abraham in Genesis chapter 15 verse 1, God promises Abraham that I am your shield. Now the word shield again in Hebrew is Magin. I am your Magin. I am your shield. And what Hashem is basically saying, what God is saying to Abraham, is that I am going to act as your protector, both in terms of physical and spiritual harm. There are many kinds of things that we need to be concerned about. And God is promising Abraham that he will be Abraham's shield. The rabbis have actually instituted or at least codified this idea of God being the shield of Abraham in our daily prayer of 19 blessings that we say three times a day, the Amida, the standing prayer, sometimes it's called the Shimonah Esrae. But the first of these 19 blessings concludes with the words Magin Abraham, that God is the shield of Abraham. Blessed are you God, the shield of Abraham. So we have at least in the beginning of our national story established this connection between God and our people, at least Abraham, that God is our shield, God is our protector. What happened at some point in Jewish history, and we're not really clear about this, is that an eight-pointed star became associated with Abraham. This is a star that was formed by two overlapping squares, one square sitting flat and one square sitting at a 45-degree angle. And if you look at those overlapping squares, they form a star with eight points. And this became known throughout history as the shield of Abraham. The eight-pointed star of Abraham, or shield of Abraham, obviously the number eight, and Abraham is easy to establish that connection because of the covenant of circumcision, which takes place on the eighth day in the career of a young boy. The next important place for us to reference is in the second book of Samuel, chapter 22, almost repeated verbatim word for word in Psalm 18. And there David refers to God in three different verses as his shield and as a protector for those who would trust in him. So I'll go through these three references with you. In verse 3 of chapter 22, David writes, The God of my rock in him I will trust. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation. And then in verse 31, David writes, As for God, his way is perfect. The word of God is tried. He is a shield to all those who would trust in him. So God is not just a shield to me, to David. David is saying that God is a shield to all who would trust in him. And then finally, a few verses later in verse 36, David says, You have given me the shield of your salvation. So right here in this one passage, you've got three times where David associates God as being his shield and again the shield of all those who would trust in him. Now about a thousand years after King David lived, the sages of the Talmud composed a blessing that we recite every Shabbat, every Sabbath after we conclude the reading of the Haftorah. The Haftorah is the portion from the prophetic books of the Bible that we read after the reading of the Torah itself. And one of the blessings that we recite after the recitation of the Haftorah ends with the words that God is the shield of David. So not only do we have this association as God being the shield of Abraham, but we have here this idea that's developed among the rabbis, obviously again based upon these verses in the Bible, that God is the shield of David. And this is the first time we see this phrase, Maghain David, the shield of David. Now there was a long standing association of God and David's shield. This idea of God and the shield of David goes all the way back again to the Bible. And there were various legends that sprung up because of this association about David going out into battle either with a shield that was shaped like a six-pointed star or he had a shield upon which was engraved a six-pointed star. But this is a very, very old legend and an old idea that goes way back associating again David having for himself God as his shield and David using the shield symbolizing the idea that God is his shield. And this became associated again with the six-pointed shield or a six-pointed star. And the idea of course is that this shield of David symbolizes God's protection. One of the things that we have and this is very clear is archaeological evidence dating back to the 6th century BCE. So this idea of the star of David, the shield of David, is not a recent vintage. Going back already to the 6th century BCE, we have six-pointed stars as a symbol associated with Judaism, with Jewish kings, with the Jewish people. And the first explicit reference to this six-pointed star as a Maghain David. So again, we have the idea of Maghain David, the idea of the shield of David going back to the formulation of the rabbinic blessing about a thousand years after David. We have this six-pointed star as a symbol going back already to the 6th century BCE. But the first time we have an explicit reference connecting the six-pointed star and referring to it as the shield of David is the Maghain David is in the middle of the 13th century. So around 1250 of the common era. We have this association with David, the shield of David, Maghain David and the six-pointed star. And what happened as you all know is in the following centuries this symbol became increasingly popular on Jewish books, tombstones and cemeteries, on synagogues, on banners in the Middle Ages. Many communities, Jewish communities would fly a banner or a flag symbolizing in the non-Jewish world where they were living, that this is part of the Jewish community and would use a Jewish star, the star of David as a symbol of the Jewish people. And it became increasingly as we got more towards modern times this star of David, the six-pointed star of David has become increasingly simply associated with Judaism and the Jewish people. Any Jewish organization that has a logo designed will often throw in a Jewish star. It's basically rampant. It's all over the place. It's ubiquitous. The association of the six-pointed star with the Jewish people and Judaism. And what might the meaning of such a symbol be? So our Moshe Feinstein wrote that King David obviously did not place his trust in his armies or in his weapons, but he places trust only in Hashem, only in God. David, as we know, was not just a psalmist, was not just a great teacher. David was also a man of war and fought many wars. That's why we're told that David was not allowed to build the holy temple that had to wait for his son Solomon, because David had fought so many wars and there was blood on his hands. But David in all of his fighting, all of his wars never put his trust in his armies or in his soldiers or in his weapons, only in God. And he felt protected by God on all six sides. And so therefore the Jewish star, the star of David having the six points referring to the six directions is the true shield of David, the true shield of David, the protection of David was from God. Another symbol that is hinted at in the star of David is that you have the core of the star and around this core are the six points. So some have suggested that this represents the idea of the Shabbat, which is the core of the Jewish spiritual life surrounded by the six days of the week. Another symbolism of the star of David. Another way of looking at this star, this star of David, is that they are formed usually by two triangles and they form a reciprocal relationship between God and Israel. So for example, one of these triangles points up and one of them points down. The one pointing up refers to our relationship to God. It's our energy going up towards God, our prayers, our mitzvot, our good deeds. And there's another star, the top triangle points down, which is the influence to Shefa that God sends down to this world in response to what we do down here. And finally one last meaning that I found was that if you look carefully at the star of David, it doesn't only have six points, it has 12 sides to it. And these 12 sides again all center around, all revolve around the core, the core of the center being God and the 12 sides around that symbolizing the 12 tribes of Israel.