Dreidel of Rabbi Eliyahu Safran
Dreidel of Rabbi Eliyahu SafranCourtesy of Shimon Gifter

Students at the Binghamton University's Chabad Student Center in upstate New York are planning to spin their dreidels to a Guinness World Record next week.

The attempt to break the current record is set to take place on Monday, December 10, just after the lighting of the third Hanukkah candle.

It is a holiday tradition to “gamble” with a dreidel – a four-sided spinning top featuring a Hebrew letter on each side from the words of the passage, “A great miracle happened there," with the word "there" used outside of Israel and "here" inside Israel, where the miracle occurred.

Hundreds of college students, faculty and community members are planning to participate in the “spin off” that is to be the highlight of the Hannukah celebration at the Chabad Center for Jewish Student Life.

Also known as the “Festival of Lights,” the eight-day holiday begins Saturday night, at the close of the Sabbath, with the lighting of the first of eight candles, one added each night.

The “spin off” is intended to serve as the culmination of Chabad at Binghamton's annual toy drive, which has raised more than $10,000 worth of toys for children with cancer, according to Chabad.org .

The current Guinness World Record was set in 2005 in Cherry Hill, New Jersey when 541 people simultaneously spun their dreidels.

Organizers of this year's event are hoping to break that record by a wide margin, and expect more than 700 participants to join the effort.