[Avodah] dreidel

[Zev Sero]

Eli Turkel wrote:
> Just read an article that dreidel (sivivon) is based on an English
> game T-totem that
> went to Germany and was played mainly around Xmas.
> 
> Any poskim outlaw dreidel based on chukat hagoyim?
> sounds much worse than Thanksgiving

There's nothing specifically goyish about it, any more than wagons or
dolls or blocks, or any other toy.  The inventor of the game is more
likely to have been a goy than a yid, just because there were a lot
more goyim than yidden in Europe at the time; but nobody knows, and it
may even have been invented independently several times.

The original letters were in Latin, where T was like the gimmel, and
stood for "totum".  Then it was translated into Yiddish, with "Nisht,
Gantz, Halb, Shtel"; and then someone came up with the "Nes Godol Hoyo
Shom" thing to give it a Chanukah flavour.

My question is whether kids started playing dreidel on Chanukah because
they were flush with Chanukah gelt, or whether they started getting
Chanukah gelt because they needed something to play dreidel with.
Either way, the story that they played dreidel to hid their Torah
learning, like the equivalent Lag Baomer story with the bows and
arrows, seems implausible.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas