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Hi all, over the years I have heard different reasons for the dreidel, some esoteric.
Can the oilem share clear short reasons as to why we spin the dreidel?
here are two
1. We put much effort into a perfect strong long lasting spin. At the end of the day the chances of attaining the results we want are not in our hands.
So too all the kochos we put into this world will always result in whatever it is Hashem wants.
2. The dreidel spins, moves, and dances about on a very tiny point in perfect balance and then stops. It has no power on of its own.
What we need to recognize is that our world, which does the same, has no power of its own. It’s all spun from the “top”.To remember Meshiach as the letters on the dreidel add up to.
The four letters on the dreidel each teach us a lesson. According to the Ben Ish Cha,i the gimel has its leg towards rhe dalet indicating to help the poor,. gomel Dalim. The heh teaches us to give the baal teshuva an extra openning to reenter and repant. The nun is narrow above and wide on the bottom. explains the Chasan Sofwr that when it comes to above, spiritual we should not be satisfied but look at people above us and vice versa below, be satisfied by looking at people below us, bashomayim mmimaal veal haaretz mitochas.
Because when the Yevonim came to find Yidden to see if they were illegally learning Torah, the Yidden quickly hid their Seforim and took out their dreidels, to make believe they were just playing and not learning Torah.
The shien with 3 legs reminds us of the avos.
There is the famous בני יששכר where he explains that the four sides of the dreidel represent the four gentile kingdoms of golus. The point represents Klal Yisroel.
נגה”ש is gematriya משיח (as RebE pointed out).
When Moshiach comes, all the nations will recognize that their focal point and foundation is Klal Yisroel.He also says that there is special significance to a wooden dreidel (gotta go buy myself one!) since it’s connected to the posuk about Moshiach קח לך עץ אחד
(בני יששכר מאמרי חדשי כסלו טבת מאמר ב סוסכ”ה)I’ve also heard (not sure where this is written) that since on Chanuka the miracle was fully מלמעלה, completely beyond nature – we spin the dreidel from the top. Whereas by Purim the miracle was in a more natural way, מלמטה – so we spin the grager from the bottom.
In EY where they day say that a great miracle was here it also adds up to Meshiach through the name Tzemach.
> Yidden quickly hid their Seforim and took out their dreidels
that might make them pasul leedut. My ancestors simply got out their geometry (gimatria) books out.
Obviously day above should be they.
In EY where they day say that a great miracle was here it also adds up to Meshiach through the name Tzemach.
And the name Menachem – “Menachem shmei” 😌
Dear Ujm,
That is a great reason except for the minor details that this is well before the advent of seforim; the dreidel wasn’t introduced to the region until much later; the Yivanim weren’t searching for them learning Torah privately; and they would have killed them simply because they weren’t hellinized,
Aside from that this is a terrible reason to play dreidel. We should just learn because that is what they wanted to do, but couldn’t.
So perhaps one answers the other. If the ideas behind your reason were true, we would learn non-stop on Chanukah and not play any games. But instead we spin the dreidel to demonstrate that it this legend is false.
Dear Ujm, That is a great reason except for the minor details…
UJM’s reason happens to be brought down here:
https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=2604&st=&pgnum=95&hilite=Not sure who this is or how reliable he is, but just putting a source out there.
this is well before the advent of seforim
In the source it says that they were learning בעל פה.the Yivanim weren’t searching for them learning Torah privately; and they would have killed them simply because they weren’t hellinized
What’s your source?
Isn’t the simple pshat of להשכיחם מתורתך that the Greeks tried preventing Jews from learning Torah? As the Rambam writes, בְבַיִת שֵׁנִי כְּשֶׁמַּלְכֵי יָוָן גָּזְרוּ גְּזֵרוֹת עַל יִשְׂרָאֵל וּבִטְּלוּ דָּתָם וְלֹא הֵנִיחוּ אוֹתָם לַעֲסֹק בְּתוֹרָה וּבְמִצְוֹת – they didn’t allow them to learn Torah.
@n0mesorah even though there were no official “seforim” yet at that time, there were always private kuntreisim that people used to chazer
Could Be, I dont think many people had kuntreisim, maybe major rabonim and people around them. Others would go by what they can remember. King Yannai did not own a bencher, for example.
not my idea: we eat oily burned food to show that we are not going to stay in shape to run in Olympic games
my idea: we are rejecting greek idea of determinism by playing random games. So, dreidel looks like a perfect symmetric polygon that greeks loved so much, but we ten take it for a gut yiddishe spin – in circles – with irrational lengths and, most importantly, into an predictable trajectory destroying the idea of determinism. In the simplest and most visible way.
It is like Albert – “G-d does not play games” Einstein visits Nils Bohr for Chanuka and Nils, instead of spewing quantum formulas, simply spins the dreidel and asks Albert to predict the letter. Tiuvta Einstein Tiuvta.
A modern version is low predictability of weather despite all sensors and computers we got.
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