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The Curious History and Messages of the “Draydel” or Sevivon
The “draidell” as it has been called for centuries in Yiddish is the spinning top with the letters standing for Nes Gadol Haya Sham (a great miracle happened there—נגהש It’s origin is somewhat clouded in mystery. The story goes that in the decade of Antiochus Epiphanes as he began to persecute the Judaens and try to stifle their spiritual legacy he decreed that Jews may not study their Torah nor observe the Sabbath. Certainly there have been archaeological finds in the Middle East and Egypt of spinning toys that were used–no doubt in gambling games. The Greeks and Romans also had such spinning tops for games of chance. Spinning tops were used to cover up such oral learning (Torah She be al Peh) in the impromptu schools that were assembled to pass on Torah learning. The dreidel was whipped out on such occasions and it allowed the generation to remain connected to Torah learning, which was covered up whenever the Roman Soldiers would appear. By no means, however, were these particular letters carved into these spinning tops, as there had yet to be a Chanukah miracle.
It is possible that in the course of time, Roman soldiers introduced this game into Europe and by the 1600s, the game was played widely by children all over Europe. The British had a game called TTotum which utilized four sided tops with latin letters standing for take, give, take one and nothing. Germany had its version, also with letters that stood for gib give, nimmt, take, halb half and nicht nothing. This game was played at holiday time and Jews in Germany adapted it to be played at Chanukah, substituting the words that described the Chanukah miracle with “a great miracle happened here.” This game, of course, followed us to America and to Israel as well.
The word “sevivon” didn’t come immediately in Hebrew. Its first mention was by a zionist author named Yeshiahu Silberbush in the early part of the 20th century, who took credit for it. Before that, Chayim Nachman Bialik called it a KarKar and Mendel Mocher Sefarim claimed it was a Hazarzar. However, the son of Eliezer ben Yehuda, Itamar, who was one of the first to speak modern Hebrew as his ‘mother tongue,’ claimed he invented the word in 1897 at the age of five. Yet another innovation came with the incipient state of Israel. Nes Gadol Haya Po (A great miracle happed “here” (shin was replace with at peh), was introduced in the 1920s and took hold over time, especially after the declaration of the modern Jewish State of Israel. Sevivon, as the term for the dreidel, was cemented in the vernacular of modern Hebrew with the introduction of Sevivon sov sov sov in 1923.
The spiritual understanding of the dreidel was developed over time in the Chasidic movement. The great sage Tzvi Elimelech Shapira (1783-1841) contended that mystically, nun stood for nefesh (soul), gimmel for guf (body), shin for sechel (intellect) and heh for hakol (all aspects of life together), and that the letters also remind us of empires that we withstood: nun for Nebuchadnezzer (‘Babylon), heh for Haman (Persia), gimmel for Gog (Greece), and shin for Seir or Rome. Each of these empires threatened us by our loss of the Holy Temple (soul), eradication (body), assimilation of thought and philosophy (intellect). By the time of Roman Empire “all of these aspects” were under assault. It would take not only miracles from above to help us, but our own work on the ground to fight for and resist these influences. But Chanukah was about our collective will to remain rooted in our history and identity. Each of us, goes the Chanukah song Banu choshech, is a little light, but together we are a brilliant raging fire of light.
The letters nun, gimmel, heh ve Shin, equal, in numerical value, 358. That is the value of the word “Messiah” and that is the value of the word “Nachash” or snake. We, interlocked with one another, standing as one can, unleash the forces of Messiah, or we can, God forfend, allow the forces of Nachash. May we remember the that centripetal momentum of the dreidel is determined by the forces below the wide body on the ground, not the little handle above. Chanukah’s miracle, we sometimes offer, is that a little cruz of oil lasted beyond expectation. The biggest miracle is that Jewish people last beyond expectation. May we always stir and animate miracle from above. We are the Maccabees; we are the light. May the little dreidel’s deeper message always stir us.
Chag Urim Sameah!