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A dreidel or dreidl (/ˈdreɪdəl/ DRAY-dəl; Yiddish: דרײדל‎, romanized: dreydl, plural: dreydlekh;[a] Hebrew: סביבון‎, romanized: sevivon) is a four-sided spinning top, played during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.

Each side of the dreidel bears a letter of the Hebrew alphabet: נ‎ (nun), ג‎ (gimel), ה‎ (hei), ש‎ (shin). These letters are translated in Yiddish to a mnemonic for the rules of a gambling game played with a dreidel: nun stands for the word נישט (nisht, “not”, meaning “nothing”), gimel for גאַנץ (gants, “entire, whole”), hei for האַלב (halb, “half”), and shin for שטעלן אַרײַן (shtel arayn, “put in”). However, according to folk etymology, they represent the Hebrew phrase נֵס גָּדוֹל הָיָה שָׁם‎ (nes gadól hayá sham, “a great miracle happened there”), referring to the miracle of the cruse of oil. For this reason, most dreidels in Israel replace the letter shin with a letter פ‎ (pe), to represent the phrase נֵס גָּדוֹל הָיָה פֹּה‎ (nes gadól hayá po, “a great miracle happened here”); however, many Haredi communities insist that the letter shin should be used in the Holy Land as well, because the reference to “there” means in the Holy Temple and not in the Land.

While not mandated (a mitzvah) for Hanukkah (the only traditional mitzvot are lighting candles and saying the full hallel), spinning the dreidel is a traditional game played during the holiday.

RULES OF THE GAME

Each player begins with an equal number of game pieces (usually 10–15). The game pieces can be any object, such as chocolate gelt, pennies, raisins, NOSH KINS, etc.

To start the game, every participant puts one game piece into the center “pot”. Every player also puts one piece into the pot when the pot is empty or there is only one game piece in the pot.
Each player spins the dreidel once during their turn. Depending on which side is facing up when it stops spinning, the player whose turn it is gives or takes game pieces from the pot:
If נ‎ (nun ) is facing up, the player does nothing.
If ג‎ (gimel ) is facing up, the player gets everything in the pot.
If ה‎ (hei ) is facing up, the player gets half of the pieces in the pot. If there are an odd number of pieces in the pot, the player takes half the pot rounded up to the nearest whole number.
If ש‎ (shin ) or פ‎ (pe) is facing up, the player adds one of their game pieces to the pot (sometimes accompanied by the chant “shin, shin, put one in”). In some game versions a shin results in adding three game pieces to the pot, one for each stem of the letter shin (ש‎).
If the player is out of pieces, they are either “out” or may ask another player for a “loan”.
These rules are comparable to the rules for a classic four-sided teetotum, where the letters A, D, N and T form a mnemonic for the rules of the game, aufer (take), depone (put), nihil (nothing), and totum (all). Similarly, the Hebrew letters on a dreidel may be taken as a mnemonic for the game rules in Yiddish. Occasionally, in the United States, the Hebrew letters on the dreidel form an English-language mnemonic about the rules: Hay or “H” for “half;” gimel or “G” for “get all;” nun or “N” for “nothing;” and shin or “S” for “share”.

#Chanukah #Dreidel #PeterLindgren