Chanukah Gelt

One of the customs associated with Chanukah is the giving of gifts of money known as Chanukah Gelt to children and family members. Over the years this has become corrupted by the influence of other cultures into the giving of Chanukah presents.

The origin of the custom is as old as Chanukah itself. It began as a reward to the children for their bravery in continuing to study the Torah and keep the mitzvahs under Syrian-Greek persecution. The reason money was given was in order to enable the children to give part of it to Tzedakah, charity, thus educating them about this central theme of Judaism from a young age.

Dreidel

During the Chanukah period the Greeks prohibited the teaching of the Torah. Jewish children would meet in secret places to study.

When they heard soldiers approaching they would pull out a dreidel and pretend they were playing an innocent game of spinning tops.

The letters on the dreidel stand for, a great miracle happened there. In Israel they read a great miracle happened here. We commemorate this by playing games of dreidel on Chanukah.