O' Dreidel, Dreidel, Sivivon...
It's such a small part of Chanuka. It isn't a mitzva or anything like that. It's a toy! Yet the dreidel, a.k.a. sivivon, conveys an important message, if you are tuned in to it.

NUN, GIMMEL, HEI, SHIN. Remember that from your "previous life"? A great miracle happened THERE! There, in Eretz Yisrael. Remember seeing your first PEI-dreidel? Maybe you saw one when you were still living in Chutz LaAretz. Maybe you only heard of the Eretz Yisrael version of the dreidel until you came on Aliya. Most "plain" dreidels here have a PEI instead of the SHIN. Some of the fancy ones in tourist shops (how many of you remember what a tourist is?) and jewelry stores still have SHINs in the hopes of selling them abroad. NUN, GIMMEL, HEI, PEI. Sounded funny at the beginning. Took time to get used to it. (Ironically, the game of dreidel requires paying up if you get a SHIN. SHALEIM, pay, or the Yiddish word begin with a SHIN.

And here, you have to PAY if you get a PEI. The languages switch, but the game is the same.) Pardon the digression. The point? The point is that the dreidel makes the point of where the Chanuka events took place. They took place here, in Eretz Yisrael. Or, there, in Eretz Yisrael. Depends what's here and what's there to you. Either way, one becomes aware of the Eretz Yisrael factor in the Chanuka story.

The Purim story can be almost anywhere. Actually, it has been in many places. We've had many Purims in our History. And the Egypt that oppressed us in the pre-Pesach time has also known other venues.

But Chanuka is Chanuka. It could only happen in Eretz Yisrael. And therein lies a criticism. Pesach and Purim cannot be "and they lived happily ever after" stories. Because we were still in exile after those redemptions. 

But Chanuka could have been that kind of story. Instead of the restoration of a false kingship and a shaky autonomy, we could have been celebrating the Complete Redemption. Except that most of the Jews were not living in Eretz Yisrael at the time. Majority did not heed the call to return 200 years before the Chanuka story. So as wonderful and miraculous as the victories were, they were seriously flawed. Jews should have come flocking back to Eretz Yisrael at the time of Ezra and Nechemya. They didn't. Maybe the Chanuka victory and miracles should have brought the Diaspora Jews home, but they didn't.

Does this picture look, feel, and sound familiar? Perhaps, the Complete Redemption will (can) only happen when Jews react "correctly" and positively to the partial redemptions. BAYAMIM HA'HEIM, BAZ'MAN HA'ZEH.