We all know that playing spin the dreidel can get a little old — especially when there’s nothing serious at stake.
That’s why we present to you the Dreidel Drinking Game: where, instead of playing with gelt, we play with alcohol.
(And if you want your drink to be extra festive: check out our Hanukkah cocktails!)
How to play the Dreidel Game (clean version):
Before we explain the drinking game, let’s cover the basics.
A dreidel is a spinning top with four sides. Each side has a different Hebrew letter. Outside of Israel, the four letters are nun, gimmel, hey, shin, representing “nes gadol haya sham” (“A great miracle happened there”).
In Israel, the shin is replaced with a peh, representing “nes gadol haya po” (“A great miracle happened here”).
These are the rules for the classic children’s version:
The most popular explanation for why we spin the dreidel on Hanukkah is connected to the Hanukkah story.
In 175 BCE, King Antiochus Epiphanes forbade Jews from keeping Shabbat and Jewish holidays, ordered Jewish people to eat non-kosher food, worship Greek idols, and banned Jews from teaching or studying Torah.
Of course, Jewish people persisted in secret.
At school, children were said to keep spinning tops in their pockets so if Greek soldiers came to check on them, the students could quickly take out their dreidels and explain that they were just playing games.
According to the tale, this allowed a generation of Jewish children to continue studying Torah and living Jewishly.
How to play the Dreidel Drinking Game
Like Jewish people joke at almost every holiday: they tried to kill us, we won, let’s drink!
So, without further ado…
Here are the official Dreidel Drinking game rules (according to Custom & Craft)
(Nun)— Nobody drinks.
(Gimel)— Everybody drinks!
(Hei)— Just the player drinks.
(Shin)— The player gives a drink to another player of their choosing.
Have fun, stay safe and let us know if you played on Instagram, Twitter and Tik Tok!
Originally Published Dec 2, 2021 12:02AM EST
