The Secret of the Dreidel - Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

the secret of the drel the drel a children's game played in The Fire Light of a cold winternight the manura silently glowing in the window the drel four sides spinning around the Still Point in the Turning Circle spinning so fast that its sides blur into nothingness the drel so seemingly insignificant and yet this little drel contains the story of the Jewish people the history of the whole world our story starts not with the miracle of Kaneka but 1,437 years earlier with Jacob's Ladder Jacob had a prophetic dream of angels ascending and descending a ladder that reached from the ground to the heavens these angels weren't Hollywood extras with fluorescent tubes over their heads they were incorporeal spiritual messenges the protecting forces of four great kingdoms four kingdoms that would in the future Dominate and Exile the Jewish people they are Babylon Persia Greece and Rome at first Jacob saw the angel of Babylon Ascend the ladder 70 steps and then he came down the Jewish people were in Babylon the Babylonian exile for 70 years then the protecting Angel of the empire of Persia and media climbed up the ladder 52 steps before he too descended the Jewish people were in Exile in Persia 52 years and then the angel of the empire of Greece climbed 180 rungs the domination of Greece lasted 180 years and finally the protecting Angel of the Roman Empire climbed up the ladder but he didn't come down and now Jacob feared that this final Exile would never end until God promised Jacob if he will rise up like an eagle and make his nest amongst the Stars even from there I will bring him down we're still in that final Exile in the softly asphyxiating Embrace of Rome's spiritual HS the four Kingdoms in the year 3038 the first of our holy temples was raised to the ground and the majority of the Jewish people led into Exile by the Babylonian Emperor Nebuchadnezzar why was this such a tragedy that the basa mikdash the Holy Temple was destroyed the basa mikdash represents a unique pipeline between God and man when it was destroyed this flow of spiritual energy was severed now this level of connection is linked to the Hebrew word nephesh as it says in VRA when a soul nees will bring an offering neish begins with the Hebrew letter n n represents the kingdom of Babylon in millat Esther hon found the final solution ution to the Jewish Problem genocide the Exile of Persia and media represents the threat to the body of the Jewish people the Goof the physical threat of annihilation goof begins with the letter giml which stands for the Persian median Kingdom now Greece on the other hand represents the attack on Torah the wisdom of Israel the Hebrew word for intellect is SE the Greeks weren't interested in in the physical destruction of the Jewish people rather they wanted to destroy the spiritual core of Judaism the Torah and leave a heniz Hulk that would conform to the Greek Norms of Aesthetics drama The Superficial wisdoms seel begins with the Hebrew letter sin and that's the letter of the kingdom of Greece the fourth Kingdom Rome is the summation of all the other Exiles at the beginning of their domination the Romans like the Babylonians sto St the bringing of offerings in the temple they destroyed the second Holy Temple and inflicted Unthinkable Carnage on the Goof the body of the Jewish people with their massacres after the massacre at beta they used Jewish blood as fertilizer for seven years at first Rome was the intellectual sign of Greece but with the conversion of the emperor Constantine to Christianity in 313 of the Common Era the Catholic church then became the spiritual heir of the Roman Empire after the demise of the influence of the church the mantle of Rome was subsequently worn by secularism and materialism these are the spiritual incarnation of Rome in our own times Rome is all the Exiles rolled up into one and thus it is represented by the Hebrew word hako meaning all and its first letter is the letter he take a Still Point in the turning Circle where is the point at the center of a circle can you define it and yet it exists just like the letter yud in the Hebrew alphabet a single Dot from which the whole universe was created this is the threshold of existence there is a Still Point in that turning Circle and around that dot turns the whole world the Jewish people are that little dot so infinitesimally small and yet around this immutable dot the World Turns what stands in opposition to that little dot what is the opposite of the central point that occupies no space Direction North South East and West expansion in four directions four is the antithesis of the one four is the number of the kingdoms who stand eternally opposed to the Jewish people eternally opposed to he who is one and to his reflection in this world the Jewish people take another look at our dral spinning what do you see four sides spinning around a central point that occupies no space and when those S spin they themselves cease to have Direction anymore now in the blur of their whirling they are a circle a reflection of the still small point at its Center what is it that is carved on the sides of our drel nun y sin he on the surface those letters stand for NES ha sham A great miracle happened there the commemoration of a miraculous victory of a faithful few over the might of the Greek Empire but on a deeper level the drel is a microcosmic representation of the four kingdoms Babylon Persia Greece and Rome spinning around the C the Jewish people and the hand that spins the drle comes from above every Empire thinks that it will last forever but the hand that spins only spins the drel of history for a predetermined time and then each Empire despite its vain glorious boasting falters on its axis and finally crashes Hebrew letters have numerical values if you add up the numerical value of n giml Shin sin you will will have 358 which just happens to be the numerical value of the gatria of mosiah the Messiah whose coming we await daily the drel a children's game played in the fir light of a cold winter night the manora silently glowing in the window the drel it's four sides spinning around the Still Point in the Turning Circle spinning so fast that its sides blur into nothingness the drel so seemingly insignificant and yet this little drel contains the story of the Jewish people the history of the whole world [Music]