Dreidels, Decisions, Destiny
by Trinidad Gómez
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The dreidel is one of the most recognizable symbols of Hanukkah, even though it has very little to do with the holiday itself. Jewish and non-Jewish children alike are told that the dreidel comes from Seleucid times—when Torah study was outlawed by the Greeks, Jews would use dreidels to make their study seem like innocuous gambling instead. We are taught that it is a symbol of our perseverance, our cunning, and our dedication to the traditions of our people; or at least this is what we have turned it into. A quick internet search reveals the top’s origins lie in a popular 18th century European game called teetotum, played using a similar style of top and rules, which was adopted and woven into the holiday’s customs. Like many of our traditions, a symbolistic façade was developed to incorporate a much darker history into the story—Jews were harshly persecuted under Seleucid rule, Torah study was forbidden, our temple was desecrated, and all that kept the Jewish people together was a staunch refusal to abandon our traditions and our nation. There were no games to hide behind. We have invested much significance into the dreidel’s meaning, but does the knowledge that it is not, in fact, an ancient link to our past make the tradition less meaningful? Why do we tell the story this way instead of more “accurately”? Why keep the dreidel around at all?
I think the game encapsulates the chag and its significance so differently than the menorah. Candles and candelabrum are ancient links to our past, carved into Roman arches and stamped on Israeli coins both antique and modern. It is a mitzvah to make the world brighter, better, more hopeful, so we are commanded to kindle the lights. In contrast, dreidels are recorded neither in the Torah nor other contemporary sources—they are something we have chosen to value. If light is the symbolic force behind the menorah’s metaphor—something we add to the world, something in our control—the dreidel’s meaning is driven by fate. Goyrl (גורל,) a Yiddish word for fate, was a term used for the dreidel before the Shoah, obviously in reference to the random nature of the game. There is no choice in where the top lands—indeed, if choice were involved in the outcome, the game wouldn’t really function as such. Is the message of this metaphor, then, that we have no power? That the only choices we have are to spin the top or walk away from the table? Or, as this American Jew might be more inclined to ask, must we play the cards we’re dealt?
I could not choose how my body or my mind formed. There was nothing I could do to influence the fact that my ears or my brain have never been called standard, that the course of an entire day can be changed based on whether or not my hearing aids will hold a charge or whether I took my medications at the right time. Is it enough to say that this is my goyrl, that I must accept the dreidel clattering to a halt on shin and stoically throw a piece of myself in the pot? Is that the hand I have to play?
No. Dreidel isn’t poker, nor is it teetotum—it is a game we chose to adopt and make our own, one which should be viewed with a Jewish lens despite its origins. Rabbi Nachman tells us the world is like a dreidel, spinning “with all things emanating from one root” which is the Temple, dreidel-like as well, “a rotating wheel, where everything revolves and is transformed”. The Breslover Rebbe sees the power of the spin, reminding us that, though we have little control over how things rotate when we ourselves are spinning, there is always potential to turn things around. I cannot control where the top lands, but I can control how hard I spin it, which hand I use, which direction I turn, where I put my hearing aids at the end of the day or when my phone reminds me to take my medication. I do not know what my fate is, because it is even now unfolding, its spinning and shaking influenced by things I cannot see or understand, constantly revolving and transforming and turning us around. The game isn’t just about the anticipation of where the top will land, but the fun of spinning it at all, the small things we do have control over which ultimately impact where our fate will take us.
This is why we keep the dreidel around, because it is a tool which provides meaning and fun to an otherwise dark holiday. Its letters did not intentionally remind of the miracle of the oil, nor was the game ever used to conceal our traditions from the Greeks— and the Maccabees never ate potato latkes! Acknowledging the true origins of the dreidel does not diminish from the holiday or the top’s powerful message. By incorporating new concepts into our practice, we are honoring our ancestors— their innovations, their revolutions, the ways they have turned our people and practice around and around again. We have been integrating symbols into Jewish practice generation after generation as a way to make our lives and our traditions more meaningful, applicable, and better adapted to the places we happened to find ourselves in, be it the Seleucid Empire, or the Russian, or the Ottoman, or the Ethiopian. We make the choice to give these tools deeper significance, to make them more interesting, and to strengthen our connection to Eretz and Am Yisrael.
I could choose to resign myself daily to putting on my hearing aids, often uncomfortable and always a little artificial sounding, reminding me that my body is different than so many others; or I could try my best to see them as a single side of a spinning top whose fate I cannot know, a single letter insignificant alone but powerful when it is alongside the others. I can give these tools a new meaning and use them to connect to the world around me. We can try, fruitlessly, to find our bearings and control our rotation as the world turns, or we can choose to lean in and enjoy the spin.
Trinidad is a graduate student in English at the University of Illinois. When they are not writing or reading, you can likely find them somewhere doing more writing or reading.
