You must know those tops we Jews spin on Hanukkah called "Dreidels." There is more to the game of "dreidel." On the surface it is a simple fun gambling game involving a 4-sided top. The side that each turn lands on determines the player's winning. It is typically played by children with chocolate coins (gelt) covered in "gold" foil. But you can play with real stakes. Its actually a lot of fun.
Nun (50) - you get no money
Gimmel (3) - you get everything. (Camel)
In 175 BCE, the Assyrian Greek King Antiochus Epiphanes who controlled the area including Israel, instituted harsh decrees against Jewish life. Jews were forbidden from keeping Shabbat and Jewish holidays, ordered to eat non-kosher food, expected to worship Greek idols, and were banned from teaching or studying the Torah.
Jewish teachers and parents persisted in running clandestine schools. At the time of Hanukkah, Jewish teaching was done orally and it was necessary for students and teachers to work together in person in secret schools. Getting caught would likely lead to death.
To avoid detection, students kept a gambling toy similar to a dreidel in their pockets. If Greek soldiers raided these secret schools, children would quickly take out their spinning tops and some coins and explain that they were just playing games. This trickery allowed a generation of Jewish children to continue to study Torah and live clandestine Jewish lives.
The Yiddish word "dreydl" comes from the word dreyen. Drehen in German. Dreydl and Drehen both mean "to turn." IN Israel they call dreidels by the Hebrew word "Sivivon." It comes from the Semitic root SBB ("to turn").
The dreidels in Israel have a Peh (פ) instead Shin (ש).
A Dreidel is lettered: Nun, Gimmel, Hey, and Shin.
An acronym for: great miracle happened “there."
A Sivivon is lettered: Nun, Gimmel, Hey, and Pey.
An acronym for: great miracle happened “here."
So Jews outside Israel, in the Diaspora, say ‘A Great Miracle Happened There' - Nes Gadol Haya Sham. ' Whereas, Jews in Israel say, ‘A Great Miracle Happened Here - Nes Gadol Haya Poh’.
There is a even more subtle difference. Notice that the only difference between the word "here" and "there" is the letter "T." Therefore, the only difference between the entire two phrases is the letter "T. " What about that letter?
The letter "T" in the English alphabet comes from the 20th letter of the Roman alphabet as used for English. It originated as the Phoenician symbol "taw," which the Greeks adopted and adapted as tau (τ) then in turn by the Romans as T.
Taw, tav, or taf is the 22nd and last letter of the Semitic (Hebrew) and Phoenician alphabet. Tāw, Hebrew, Tav ת, in ancient Hebrew the letter looked like a cross and it signified a "mark" or "sign" or "covenant."
The 20th letter in Hebrew is Resh. They is drawn like a head in ancient Hebrew and is symbolic of Authority.
Here is a numerical way to look at a Dreidel. In Hebrew every letter has a numeric equivalent. Gematria is a method of studying the numerical meaning associated with the letters in the Torah.
The numerical value of the Hanukkah dreidel’s letters, nun, gimmel, hey and shin, is 358. 358 is also the numerical value of the Hebrew word "Nachash." That is the Hebrew word for the serpent (snake) that tempted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge in the book of Genesis. 358 is also numerical value of the Hebrew word Moshiach, or Messiah.
Perhaps the Sivivon also gives a clue to who the Messiah is. The gematria also equates to the Hebrew name "Menachem." This name means to console or comfort,
Another symbolic (supernatural) way of looking at the dreidel’s Hebrew letters represents the divine aspects of a human being:
- Nun means Nefesh, Hebrew for “soul”;
- Gimmel means Guf, Hebrew for “body”;
- Shin is Sechel, “understanding” in Hebrew;
- Hey stands for "Hakol", which means “everything” in Hebrew, because the other three letters make up all of a person’s core qualities.
The great Chassidic scholar Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech Shapiro (1783-1841) noted that the dreidel’s four letters correspond with four ancient kingdoms that tried and failed to destroy the Jewish people.
- Nun represents Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian leader who destroyed the first Temple in Jerusalem.
- Gimel stands for Gog, or Greece, which tried to eradicate the Jewish religion in the time of Hanukkah.
- Hey stands for Haman, the wicked minister in ancient Persia who wanted to commit genocide and wipe out the Jews and whose defeat is remembered during the Jewish holiday of Purim.
- Shin stands for Seir, or ancient Rome, which destroyed the second Temple in Jerusalem and ended Jewish rule in ancient Israel for nearly two thousand years.
Finally, the letters nun, gimmel, hey, shin are supposed to represent the four kingdoms that tried to destroy us [in ancient times]: N = Nebuchadnetzar = Babylon; H = Haman = Persia = Madai; G = Gog = Greece; and S = Seir = Rome.
Finally, there is an interesting comparative observation that's been made between the dreidel toy that we turn on Hanukkah and the "groggers" that we spin (turn) on Purim to make noise in order to drown out the name of wicked Haman when we read the Megillah Esther. Each toy carries a hefty symbolic meaning.
- On Hanukkah, we spin dreidels from the top; our hands (symbolizing the “hand” of God) are clearly visible. You could say the revealed hand of God.
- On Purim, however, we hold the grogger from the bottom. We can’t see our hand controlling the toy. This reflects the nature of the Purim miracle, in which the hand of God was concealed.
The dreidel game originally had nothing to do with Hanukkah; it has been played by various people in various languages for many centuries.
In England and Ireland there is a game called totum or teetotum that is especially popular at Christmastime. In English, this game is first mentioned as “totum” ca. 1500-1520. The name comes from the Latin “totum,” which means “all.” By 1720, the game was called T- totum or teetotum, and by 1801 the four letters already represented four words in English: T = Take all; H = Half; P = Put down; and N = Nothing.
Our Eastern European game of dreidel (including the letters nun, gimmel, hey, shin) is directly based on the German equivalent of the totum game: N = Nichts = nothing; G = Ganz = all; H = Halb = half; and S = Stell ein = put in. In German, the spinning top was called a “torrel” or “trundl,” and in Yiddish it was called a “dreidel,” a “fargl,” a “varfl” [= something thrown], “shtel ein” [= put in], and “gor, gorin” [= all].
When Hebrew was revived as a spoken language, the dreidel was called, among other names, a sevivon, which is the one that caught on.
Thus the dreidel game represents an irony of Jewish history. In order to celebrate the holiday of Hanukkah, which celebrates our victory over cultural assimilation, we play the dreidel game, which is an excellent example of cultural assimilation! Of course, there is a world of difference between imitating non-Jewish games and worshiping idols, but the irony remains nonetheless.