Hanukkah Exotica: On the Origin and Development
of Some Hanukkah Customs*
by Prof. David Golinkin
Insight
Israel, Vol. 4, No. 4 December 2003, Jerusalem
Most of the laws of Hanukkah are related to the lighting of the menorah or hanukkiya1 and are described in detail in the tractate of Shabbat and in the standard codes of Jewish law.2 In this article we shall describe some of the customs of Hanukkah. The main difference between laws and customs is that laws stem from rabbinic interpretations of the Torah and Talmud which then filter down to the Jewish people, while customs usually start with the people and filter up to the rabbis. Through customs, the Jewish people have shown their love for God and tradition and immeasurably enriched all aspects of Jewish observance.3 We shall begin with one well-known Hanukkah custom and then proceed to describe four lesser-known customs. In each case we shall try to trace the origin of the custom and some of its permutations throughout Jewish history.
I) The Dreidl4
The dreidl or sevivon is perhaps the most famous custom associated with Hanukkah. Indeed, various rabbis have tried to find an integral connection between the dreidl and the Hanukkah story. The standard explanation is that the letters nun, gimel, hey, shin which appear on the driedl in the Diaspora, stand for “nes gadol hayah sham,” “a great miracle happened there.” In Israel the dreidl says nun-gimel-hey-pey which means “a great miracle happened here.” One nineteenth-century rabbi went one step further; he maintained that Jews played with the dreidl in order to fool the Greeks if they were caught studying Torah which had been outlawed.5
Others figured out elaborate gematriot6 and word plays for the letters nun, gimel, hey, shin. For example, nun-gimel-hey-shin in gematria is 358, which is also the numerical equivalent of mashiakh or Messiah! Nun-gimel-hey-shin is also the gematria equivalent of the sentence “God is king, God was king, and God will be king”!7 Finally, the letters nun-gimel-hey-shin are supposed to represent the four kingdoms which tried to destroy us: N = Nebuchadnetzar = Babylon; H = Haman = Madai; G = Gog = Greece; and S = Seir = Rome.
As a matter of fact, all of these elaborate explanations were invented after the fact. The dreidl game originally had nothing to do with Hanukkah; it has been played by various people in various languages for many centuries. The permutations of the dreidl game are outlined in the chart which follows:8
| Country | Name of the Game |
Take All | Take Half | Put in More | Do Nothing |
| England,
Ireland ca. 1500 |
Totum (in Latin) |
T=Totum | A=Aufer | D=Depone | N=Nihil |
| England 1801 | T-totum | T=Take | H=Half | P=Put down | N=Nothing |
| France 1611 | Toton | T=Toton | A=Accipe | D=Da | R=Rien |
| Sardinia, Italy | Tutte | T=Tutte | M=Mesu | P=Pone | N=Nuda |
| Germany | Torrel, Trundel | G=Ganz | H=Halb | S=Stell ein | N=Nichts |
| Hebrew or Yiddish | Dreidl | Gimel=Gadol | Hey=Haya | Shin=Sham Pey=Po |
Nun=Nes |
Furthermore, even among the Jews, this game has been called many different names. The Jews of medieval France and Italy seemed to have called this game — which was apparently not connected to Hanukkah — tam v’hetzi = whole and half; tam v’khaser = whole and missing; or tam v’kes = whole and half.9 In German, the spinning top was called a torrel or trundl and in Yiddish it was called a dreidl, a fargl, a varfl [= something thrown], shtel ein [= put in], and gor, gorin [= all]. When Hebrew was revived as a spoken language, the dreidl was called galgalan, khazerzer, kirkar galgalon, and s'veevon, and the latter name is the one that caught on.
Thus the dreidl 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 dreidl game — which is an excellent example of cultural assimilation! Of course, there is a world of difference between imitating non-Jewish games and worshipping idols, but the irony remains nonetheless.