How higher might the deep mystical fact we’d like immediately be represented than by Dictionary.com’s selection of “6-7” as 2025’s word of the year? This was insightful not due to the mind rot that produced this nonsense phrase so beloved by each human between the ages of 5 and 15 — together with my very own youngsters laughing uproariously as they shout it throughout the dinner desk — however due to the revelation that I feel the viral meme is gesturing towards.
As a rabbi, it’s a part of my job to stretch into the realms of the fantastical to search out that means. My ancestors may need had bushes aflame and valleys of bones come to life; I’ve web slang. And to me, 6-7 (pronounced “six seven”) illuminates our bedrock want on this perilous second.
As governments tighten their fists, wars escalate and compassion erodes from public life, the eager for justice, therapeutic and decency has reached a fever pitch. People are furiously calling their elected officers, voting in document numbers, turning out for among the largest protests in our nation’s historical past, donating to political and nonprofit causes that assist essentially the most susceptible, and obstructing and doxxing the immigration brokers who’re kidnapping individuals off the road and capturing unarmed civilians.
And you already know what? We’re exhausted. The final 12 months have been endlessly painful. How are we going to maintain going?
6-7.
That’s the reply. That’s the method, the traditional magic ratio for surviving a polycrisis: Six components noticing the brokenness and dealing to repair it, and one half “mayain olam haba” — Hebrew for “a style of the rising world” — for a complete of seven components.
Mayain olam haba is a observe throughout the Jewish mystic custom of kabbalah that invitations seekers to sink into the liberation we lengthy for; to show our consideration to all the pieces on this planet that’s already simply, stunning and compassionate; and to play “as if” for all the pieces that’s not there but. If we have been actually free, if we lived on this planet we longed for, how would we spend our time? Resting, consuming scrumptious meals with pals, making love, wandering in nature, studying, dancing, singing collectively, sitting in meditation. Properly, that’s what we’re invited to do with one-seventh of our lives.
Within the Jewish custom, we schedule mayain olam haba with Shabbat: in the future every week, after six days of effort, after we disengage from the world’s brokenness to put down the neurological pathways of residing sooner or later world we crave. As a result of if we by no means expertise the world we’re working towards, how will we acknowledge items of it once they arrive? How will we all know we’re heading in the right direction as we work? And the way will we survive till the work is accomplished? As one in all my favourite Yiddish expressions says: “Till you get to the bar, you additionally want a drink.”
You don’t want to look at Shabbat or learn Torah or be Jewish to observe the non secular artwork of 6-7. You simply have to commit six-sevenths of your life to attempting to enhance the world and shield one-seventh of your life for pleasure, connection and relaxation — time that reminds you what all of the battle is for. And also you don’t have to look at that one-seventh of relaxation in any excellent means.
As a father or mother with a more-than-full-time job, I’m not preaching from any monastic tower. I’m within the trenches with you. That’s precisely why I discover that taking a break from emails, social media and conferences to commit one-seventh of my week to their reverse — lighting candles, having a tasty dinner, sinking into an important TV present, cuddling with my companion, sleeping in late, meditating, studying, taking part in board video games with my youngsters or sitting on the entrance stoop and watching the leaves on the town timber transfer within the wind — provides me a small however actual expertise of the extra easeful, pleasureful life I’m working towards for myself and for all individuals. It’s the properly from which I drink all week. The division between these six days and this seventh day is on the coronary heart of my life.
So sure, let’s embrace 6-7 because the response to all that was unsuitable in 2025, the mantra for bringing 2026 nearer to proper residing and the roadmap for all of the years to return. As a result of perhaps it’s not nonsense in any respect. Possibly it’s a message out of the mouths of babes to remind us the best way to maintain going when the world seems like an excessive amount of. Let’s hear. Let’s proceed to throw ourselves six-sevenths of the time into the painful work of repairing what’s damaged. And let’s commit one-seventh of our lives to experiencing the rising world. On this means, might we preserve the power we have to construct it.
Jericho Vincent is the founding rabbi of Temple of the Stranger, a Brooklyn-based group rooted in inclusive kabbalah. They’re the creator of the memoir “Cut Me Loose.”
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Concepts expressed within the piece
- The “6-7” meme represents a significant non secular method reasonably than senseless nonsense, drawing from Jewish mystical traditions and providing steerage for navigating modern crises. The phrase embodies a ratio of six components dedicated to social activism and restore work alongside one half devoted to relaxation, pleasure and connection that sustains activists by way of sustained battle. This observe, rooted within the Jewish idea of “mayain olam haba” or experiencing “a style of the rising world,” supplies a template relevant throughout non secular and secular contexts for these engaged in political organizing, social justice work and group safety. By dedicating one-seventh of life to practices like meditation, time with family members and artistic pursuits, people can expertise glimpses of the liberated world they’re laboring to construct, thereby sustaining the psychological and non secular resilience essential to proceed long-term activism work.
Totally different views on the subject
- Linguistics students clarify the “6-7” phrase as basically nonsensical, carrying no inherent informational that means however reasonably serving primarily as social shorthand that builds group amongst younger individuals by creating insider standing by way of shared understanding[1]. The pattern features as play and humor oriented towards marking generational boundaries between youth and adults, with the phrase’s attraction stemming largely from its meaninglessness reasonably than from any deeper significance[1]. Dictionary authorities classify “6-7” as an interjection that is still nonsensical by design, a viral expression popularized by way of social media and rap music with out substantive semantic content material past its capability to elicit laughter amongst youth audiences[2].
