Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh - The Dreidel's Hidden Meanings

The 8 days of Chanukah commemorate the miraculous victory of the Maccabees over their Hellenistic oppressors, over 2300 years ago. Over the centuries, Jewish children have adopted the dreidel, the famous top with the 4 Hebrew letters nun, gimel, hei, and shin (?, ?, ?, ?) inscribed on its four sides, forming the initials of the phrase, “A great miracle occurred there.”

As Rabbi Ginsburgh reveals in an in-depth analysis and spiritual meditation, the dreidel’s name, shape, spin, and symbols contain deep secrets and can be used as a meditative tool in expanding the horizons of our consciousness. Projecting an interplay between two basic shapes, a square and a circle, the dreidel’s spinning form reveals insight into diverse topics from the anatomy of the eye to the ability to appreciate spiritual variety to the spin of elementary particles. The customary rules for playing dreidel reveal a surprising lesson about the law of entropy and how selflessness is a prerequisite to profit and success.

Like all of Rabbi Ginsburgh’s work, this one too will open you up to the depths of spiritual and intellectual meaning hidden in every part of our Jewish tradition.