Dreidel gift celebrates friendship and diversity
Soon, the Hanukkah decorations go back into storage, but a hand-knit dreidel will remain upstairs.
A present several years ago from Erin Cordle, who works at the Catholic Diocese of Columbus, the dreidel reminds me of a friendship that evolved from our work on nonpartisan voter-education forums.
Hanukkah celebrates two miracles: the survival of the Jewish religion against great odds, and a light burning one day’s fuel that lasted for eight days. By lighting a progressive number of candles each night of the holiday, Jews remember the everlasting light in the ancient Jewish Jerusalem temple that kept burning until more oil arrived and heroes, like the Maccabees, who won battles against larger numbers of soldiers.
While not a major Jewish holiday like Yom Kippur in the fall, Hanukkah is a time for good food, family, fun, and dreidels — used in a Hanukkah game.
A dreidel is not a religious symbol, but each of its four sides offers a choice: win all (Gimmel); nothing (Nun); half (hei), and put in more and get nothing (shin). The prize for the winner is a pot of goodies, collected during the play, usually chocolate candies shaped like a form of money, raisins or actual pennies for the big spenders.
To me, the spin of the dreidel symbolizes our lives. So much is chance, spinning us around, landing us somewhere that, with luck, will give us the opportunity to build a good life. Sometimes, we win most of what we want; other times, we lose. Always, we need to play the cards we have been given to the best of our ability.
My knit dreidel also represents the miracle of friendship that crosses religions and other differences. Luck landed me in a country where the government operates under a Constitution, the First Amendment of which allows freedom of religion but no established state religion. Luck let me live at a time when courts and governments provided increasing protections for those of us who look or believe differently.
Our American culture allows Erin and me to be friends, equals in society, free to learn about each other and permitted to respect each other’s traditions, ideas and our respective religions that have formed our values. Such an ability to coexist with someone of a different background has been rare in world history. The spin of the dreidel, the luck of the draw allowed us to have been born in a time when it is possible.
More often, intolerance has flourished. For example, England during the era of King Henry VIII, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth I switched from being Catholic to Protestant then back to Catholic and then back to Protestant. Leaders and members of the religion not in power were quartered or beheaded for their beliefs and did the same to others when they returned to power. Jews, expelled in the 13th Century, were not to be permitted to return until the late 17th Century.
The U.S. isn’t perfect. It has had its Know Nothing Party, its Ku Klux Klan, its intolerance for people whose, race, religion and/or sexual preference differ from that of the majority. But, like the light in the temple that kept burning until help arrived, our Constitution’s First Amendment holds the promise of a future where the lack of respect for others is eliminated and we all live without fear or oppression.
We must fight to keep the light of tolerance growing; that is what this dreidel says to me. I treasure my knitted dreidel, a symbol of America’s promise and of friendship.