Jewish Life Digital Edition November 2014 | Page 42
MYTHBUSTER
BOBBA MAASEH OR GENUINE JUDAISM
In a real SPIN
Is my dreidel still a dreidel if it
has no Hebrew letters?
HERE COMES CHANUKAH, THAT FUN FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS AND HEARTBURN.
This is the time when we eat more latkes than we should and
when our kids spin tops and insist that we should give them
more gelt. Israel does Chanukah somewhat differently, replacing latkes with sufganiyot (“jelly doughnuts”) and spinning
dreidels emblazoned with a different message to ours.
A dreidel is a spinning top, traditionally wooden, nowadays
usually plastic, with one Hebrew letter imprinted on each of
its four sides. Those four letters are meant to summarise the
Chanukah story, which is why in Israel they’re a little different
to everywhere else. An Israeli dreidel (or sevivon) will have the
letters: nun ( ), gimmel ( ), hey ( ), peh ( ), as a mnemonic
for “nes gadol haya poh – a great miracle happened here”. The
rest of the Jewish world replaces the last letter with a “shin”
( ), which alters the phrase to read “nes gadol haya sham – a
great miracle happened there”. We don’t live in Israel, where
the Chanukah story unfolded, so we cannot use the expression
“a great miracle happened here”. But those letters on our
dreidels carry deep significance.
For a start, those four letters summarise how we commemorate the Chanukah miracle: nun and shin stand for “Neros Shemonah”, eight candles, while “gimmel, hey” abbreviate “gomrim Hallel”, that we complete the entire Hallel prayer during
each day of Chanukah.
Plus, the four panels of the dreidel also represent the
four historical oppressors of the Jewish nation: the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks (or, more accurately, the Hellenists)
and Romans. Each of these nations tried to destroy one
fundamental aspect of our nation, represented by one of
the letters on the dreidel. The Babylonians destroyed the
Temple to try and harm our souls (neshama, represented by
the letter nun). The Persians simply wanted to kill us. The
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ISSUE 79
body, or guf, is represented by the letter gimmel. The Hellenists challenged our study of Torah, the mind (seichel) being represented by the letter shin. And the Romans wanted
to uproot everything about us, “hakol” in Hebrew, represented by the letter hey. A spinning dreidel reminds us
that, no matter how hard each nation has tried to destroy
us, they have each fallen, while the world continues to pivot
on the axis of the Jewish people.
All life’s problems could be attributed to one primordial
snake that tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden. Snake in Hebrew is
, which is mighty similar to three of the letters on
the dreidel:
(two letters are identical and the third pair (
and ) looks remarkably alike). The snake seduced humans to
sin (spelled in Hebrew with a ), and our job is to change that
sin back into dedication to G-d (spelled in Hebrew with a ).
When we succeed in our goal of transforming ourselves to become holy, we construct the word
, a word that implies refuge and is a symbol of the messianic utopia. Every Hebrew letter has a numerical value. Add up the values of the four letters
on your dreidel and you will arrive at 358, the numerical value
of Moshiach.
Regardless of which letters are on your dreidel, you should
allow the dreidel’s message to inspire you to remember that
life is cyclic and that each of us can spin the world 180 degrees, from darkness to light. The dreidel reminds us that we
achieve nothing by being stagnant. To change the world, we
need to move. Don’t feel that you’re alone in this mission to
make the world a better place. We spin a dreidel from the top
to remind us that change is guided and assisted by G-d. JL
Have you got a question for Rabbi Shishler? Email your ‘bobba
maaseh’ to [email protected] and it could be answered
in the next issue!
Rabbi Ari Shishler is the rabbi of Chabad
of Strathavon and learning director at
Chabad House. He is a popular local and
inter