Sevivon sof sof sof

Its almost Chanukah!!  I can feel the excitement in the air.  The bakeries are already offering soufganiot for the impatient.

I've already double checked my stash of sevivons for when the time comes to play them.  They are also known as dreidels.  Funny, I took a look at my plan, wooden dreidel and.....

There are so much more fancier dreidels out these days:

Check out Amazon's decorated to the hilt dreidel!

Nowadays there's metalic dreidals...

Yemenite art dreidels...

And dreidels with music and lights...

Dreidel is a competitive game in which all players take turns to spin a top which has letters on different sides.  Coins are put out as wagers.  If it lands on the letter Gimel then the spinner gets all the wagered coins.  If it lands on Nun, then the spinner gets none.  If it lands on Heh, they get half and if it lands on Pey, they have to actually add to the wager.

This game is played by Jewish people during the eight days of  Chanukah.  What kind of dreidel are you getting this Chanukah??

Tuesday night is the first night of Chanukah. It goes for 8 nights.

Practice: People light an eight candled menorah at a low point either on the ground or on a low table. The point is to have the light in a low place to represent how low the light can reach (even to the lowest places). The menorah is placed either right outside the house or near a window -somewhere where passersby can see the proclamation. What's being proclaimed?

BACKGROUND: During the period of the second Beit HaMikdash, the Greek kings (descendents of Yaffet) ussued harsh decrees against Israel.  Religious practices were outlawed, even Torah study was outlawed. Their outlook was very different than the Jews for example: to the Greeks, the human body was a most perfect creation and so to circumcize it was seen as wrong. The Greeks entered the Sanctuary and ravaged it , defiling all that was ritually pure.

One family of Cohain, the Hashmonaim, (Matisyahu and his 5 sons) decided to fight against the Greeks. This was interesting because the Cohain are not suppose to be leaders, but rather priests. Nevertheless as they say "where there is no man.. be a man"  So they took on the role of leader and lead the Jewish people into battle against the Greeks.  First one brother, then when he died, another brother, then another. Total all 5 brothers fought valiantly to the end.

An added struggle was that there were many Jews who were only to happy to give up Torah, give up mitzvot, everything in exchange for being 'just like their non-Jewish neighbors'. These were the Hellenist Jews. Unfortunately, the Cohain family and their people had to do battle with both the Greeks and the Hellenist Jews.

AFterwards they went into the Holy Temple and searched around to light the candles of the menorah. They found only a small flask of oil -seemingly too small to last a day, but they tried it anyway. To their suprise, the candle stayed lit for 8 days. A miracle happened here!