A 14-year-old in a religious school class was curious and asked about the dreidel, and the teacher merely explained it as a game played on Chanukah. The teacher went on to explain the letters nun, gimel, hay, shin were to remind us that Nes Gadol Haya Sham – A great miracle happened there. A remembrance of the miracles of the small army that turned over the massive, well-trained Syrian-Greek armies.
The student looked and asked, “What does this have to do with being Jewish?” He was truly looking for a spiritual meaning to the dreidel. He could not accept that this gambling game had anything to do with Yiddishkeit – Judaism.
Perhaps if the teacher had explained that the dreidel represents each Jewish person and the letters teach that though life spins about that all parts of a person must grow also. The nun is for nefesh – the soul – which strives for high and higher meaning, the gimmel is for guf – the body – which needs to be kept healthy and strong, the shin is for sechel – mind – that seeks and learns, and the hay is for Hakol – everything – together makes up each person.
Some rabbis connected the four letters with the four exiles of the Jewish people — Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome.
The Babylonians came and destroyed the Beis haMikdah (the Holy Temple in Jerusalem) and exiled the Jewish people. The Beis haMikdash represents a unique channel between Hashem (G-d) and Man. When it was destroyed, this flow of spiritual energy was severed. The level of this connection is linked to the word “nefesh” – soul (“When a soul will bring an offering”…Leviticus 2:1). Nefesh begins with the letter nun, and nun represents the kingdom of Babylon.
We learn from the story of Esther, that Haman wanted to physically destroy the Jewish people. The exile of Persia and Media represents the threat to the “guf” – the body of the Jewish People, the physical threat of annihilation. Guf begins with gimel which stands for the kingdom of Persia and Media.
Greece, on the other hand, represents the attack on the Torah itself – the sechel – the wisdom of Israel. The Syrian-Greeks weren’t interested in the physical destruction of the Jewish People; rather they wanted to destroy the spiritual basis of Judaism – the Torah – and leave a Hellenized shell that would agree with the Greek norms of aesthetics – drama, philosophy, and art. Sechel begins with the letter shin – that’s the letter of the kingdom of Greece.
The fourth kingdom, Rome, is a summation of all the other exiles. At the beginning of their domination, the Romans, like the Babylonians, stopped the bringing of offerings in the Temple. Then, they destroyed the second Holy Temple and inflicted unthinkable bloodshed on the “guf”, the body of Jewish People. Rome is all the exiles rolled into one and thus it is represented by the Hebrew word “HaKol which begins with hay” meaning “all”.
Let us all grow in wisdom, strong in spirit, and healthy in body.
May all your tales end with Shalom (peace)
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Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. (Joel 1:3)
Rachmiel Tobesman is a motivational speaker and Maggid (spiritual Storyteller). He is available for speaking engagements or storytelling, Click here to contact us
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