A comprehensive guide to playing dreidel this Hanukkah

The dreidel is a four-sided top with Hebrew characters on each side, and it's a simple yet super-fun holiday game to play with loved ones during the Hanukkah season. The Hebrew word for dreidel is "sevivon," which means "turn around." Learn more about this Jewish traditional game here.

The traditional game of dreidel was invented thousands of years ago when Jewish worship had been outlawed. Jews who gathered to study the Torah would play the game to make soldiers think they were not practicing their religion. Today, children and adults play this game of chance during Hanukkah to see who can win the most money, or "gelt" in Yiddish, which is chocolate candy wrapped in gold to look like coins.

The four Hebrew symbols on the dreidel have historical significance. The symbols are "nun," "gimel," "hay," and "shin," and they stand for the phrase "Nes gaol haya sham," which means "A great miracle happened there". This refers to the miracle of the burning oil that celebrated over the eight days of Hanukkah. In Israel, however, the fourth letter "shin" is replaced by the letter "peh," and the phrase goes, "Nes gaol haya po," which means "A great miracle happened here".

To play dreidel, you'll first need to gather a few friends and family members. The game can be played with as few as two people, but you can have more fun by inviting a bigger crowd to participate. Before you officially begin, give every player an equal amount of gelt. If you don't have gelt, you can use other tokens like pennies, nuts, raisins or marbles. Everyone sits in a circle on the floor and puts one piece of gelt in the middle of the circle to make "the pot."

Each player takes turns spinning the dreidel once. When it's your turn, the letter you roll determines which action you take next. Rolling "shin," which means "shtetl," or "put in" in Yiddish, means you put another piece of gelt in the pot. If you roll "nun," which means "nisht" or "nothing" in Yiddish, you do nothing. "Gimel," which refers to "gantz" or "everything" in Yiddish, is the best letter to roll, because it means that you get to take all the gelt from the pot. Finally, a roll of "hay" means "halb" or "half" in Yiddish, and it means that you take half of the gelt from the pot.

When players run out of gelt, they're eliminated from the game. Everyone else continues to play until somebody wins by collecting all the gelt.

This simple game is the perfect way to gather family and friends of all ages to compete, celebrate and laugh with one another.