Noah Kenn hopes to spin his way to a sugar high this week.

He’ll be playing dreidel – a traditional Jewish game played during Hanukkah – and trying to win gelt, which are chocolate coins.

“It’s like top-spinning with betting, in a way,” Noah says. “It’s kind of unexplainable, but it’s just fun.”

Jews have been playing dreidel for thousands of years. The tradition goes back to the days of Greek-Syrians, who prohibited Jews from learning the Torah. When a Greek-Syrian came near them as they were studying Torah, they would play dreidel as a decoy.

Today, dreidel remains a traditional part of Hanukkah, which began at sundown Friday and runs through sundown Dec. 23.

“This is the time, mostly, when you play dreidel,” says Lois Schneider, who heads the religious school at the Lawrence Jewish Community Center, 917 Highland Drive. “In the summer, you play red rover. At Hanukkah, you play dreidel. But dreidels, to kids, are a Jewish symbol anytime.”

The game is pretty simple.

It’s played with a spinning top that has four sides, each marked with a different Hebrew letter. Each participant starts with a stash of gelt (nuts, pennies or just about anything else can be substituted for chocolate).

Each player antes one gelt into the pot, then takes a turn spinning the top. How the top lands determines what he or she has to do:

¢ If it lands on nun, nothing happens, and the next player spins.

¢ If it lands on hey, the player gets half the pot.

¢ If it lands on gimel, he or she gets the entire pot.

¢ If it lands on shin, he or she has to add one gelt into the pot.

The game continues until one player has all the gelt.

Together, the Hebrew letters represent “a great miracle happened there.” They refer to the reason Jews celebrate Hanukkah, the miracle at the Second Temple of Jerusalem. The story goes that the temple was desecrated, and later, when the Jews entered again, there was only enough oil to burn a candle for one day.

But it burned for eight days, considered a miracle by Jews and dictating how long Hanukkah should last.

Polli Kenn, Noah’s mother, says her three children know the meaning behind dreidel.

“We don’t lecture them during a fun game of dreidel,” she says. “I think they find it interesting that the game has more meaning than just collecting a big pile of chocolate.”

Her kids usually opt to play at the table or on a wood floor, to make for easier spinning.

“There’s heavy competition to have the biggest pile of gelt,” she says. “The stakes can change at any moment.”

The types of dreidels available for purchase are pretty much endless.

Herb Friedson, who manages the gift shop at the Jewish Community Center, has about 100 different dreidels available for purchase. There are functional dreidels intended for children, made of wood or plastic.

And then there are the collector dreidels, the ones made of silver, crystal or other ornate materials. Many are made in Israel but, these days, many are made in China, too.

“The sky’s the limit,” Friedson says. “There are catalogs of dreidels. The price range is limitless. If you want a dreidel with diamonds, you can get a dreidel with diamonds.”

He says dreidels remain as popular as they were when he was a child.

“They’ve been playing dreidels for centuries,” he says. “Kids look forward to it. It’s something fun to do during the Hanukkah celebration.”

Noah Kenn, who prefers plastic dreidels because they generally spin better than the wooden variety, is excited about playing.

But he may be more excited about another aspect of the Hanukkah holiday.

“We just play for the candy,” he says. “We just play until we get bored.

“We’re more interested in the presents.”