In Israel, the actual setting of the Chanukah miracle, the last letter, shin, is substituted with a pey (פ), which stands for "po" —"here."

The classic dreidel is a four-sided spinning top made of wood, plastic, or the proverbial clay. On the four sides of the dreidel appear four letters from the Hebrew alphabet— nun (נ) , gimmel (ג) , hey (ה) , and shin (ש) . These four letters are an acronym for "nes gadol hayah sham"— "a great miracle happened there."

How to Play Dreidel

If the dreidel lands on a...

Absolutely nothing happens.stands for the

Yiddish

wordwhich means zero. It's time for the player to your left to take a spin.

Gimel

You get to take the whole pot!stands for, which means whole. Everyone, including you, now puts another unit into the pot, and the person to your left tries his luck at spinning.

You get to take half of the pot.stands for, half. If the pot has an odd amount of units, don't try to split that penny, nut, or piece of chocolate in half. Leave the odd item there.

You put a unit into the pot.is for; yes, that means "give."

You can speed up the game by upping the ante, raising shin and post-gimmel contributions to two, three or even four units.

Any player that cannot contribute after landing on a shin or after a fellow player lands on a gimmel, is out of the game. The game ends when there is one player left.