The deep, soul-sustaining truth of the ‘6-7’ meme

How better could the deep mystical truth we need today be represented than by Dictionary.com’s choice of “6-7” as 2025’s word of the year? This was insightful not because of the brain rot that produced this nonsense phrase so beloved by every human between the ages of 5 and 15 — including my own kids laughing uproariously as they shout it across the dinner table — but because of the revelation that I think the viral meme is gesturing toward.

As a rabbi, it’s part of my job to stretch into the realms of the fantastical to find meaning. My ancestors might have had bushes aflame and valleys of bones come to life; I have internet slang. And to me, 6-7 (pronounced “six seven”) illuminates our bedrock need in this perilous moment.

As governments tighten their fists, wars escalate and compassion erodes from public life, the longing for justice, healing and decency has reached a fever pitch. Folks are furiously calling their elected officials, voting in record numbers, turning out for some of the largest protests in our country’s history, donating to political and nonprofit causes that support the most vulnerable, and obstructing and doxxing the immigration agents who are kidnapping people off the street and shooting unarmed civilians.

And you know what? We’re exhausted. The last 12 months have been endlessly painful. How are we going to keep going?

6-7.

That’s the answer. That’s the formula, the ancient magic ratio for surviving a polycrisis: Six parts noticing the brokenness and working to fix it, and one part “mayain olam haba” — Hebrew for “a taste of the emerging world” — for a total of seven parts.

Mayain olam haba is a practice within the Jewish mystic tradition of kabbalah that invites seekers to sink into the liberation we long for; to turn our attention to everything in the world that is already just, beautiful and compassionate; and to play “as if” for everything that’s not there yet. If we were truly free, if we lived in the world we longed for, how would we spend our time? Resting, eating delicious food with friends, making love, wandering in nature, reading, dancing, singing together, sitting in meditation. Well, that’s what we’re invited to do with one-seventh of our lives.

In the Jewish tradition, we schedule mayain olam haba with Shabbat: one day a week, after six days of effort, when we disengage from the world’s brokenness to lay down the neurological pathways of living in the future world we crave. Because if we never experience the world we’re working toward, how will we recognize pieces of it when they arrive? How will we know we’re on the right track as we work? And how will we survive until the work is completed? As one of my favorite Yiddish expressions says: “Until you get to the bar, you also need a drink.”

You don’t need to observe Shabbat or read Torah or be Jewish to practice the spiritual art of 6-7. You just need to devote six-sevenths of your life to trying to improve the world and protect one-seventh of your life for joy, connection and rest — time that reminds you what all the struggle is for. And you don’t have to observe that one-seventh of rest in any perfect way.

As a parent with a more-than-full-time job, I’m not preaching from any monastic tower. I’m in the trenches with you. That’s exactly why I find that taking a break from emails, social media and meetings to devote one-seventh of my week to their opposite — lighting candles, having a tasty dinner, sinking into a great TV show, cuddling with my partner, sleeping in late, meditating, reading, playing board games with my kids or sitting on the front stoop and watching the leaves on the city trees move in the wind — gives me a small but real experience of the more easeful, pleasureful life I’m working toward for myself and for all people. It is the well from which I drink all week. The division between those six days and this seventh day is at the heart of my life.

So yes, let’s embrace 6-7 as the response to all that was wrong in 2025, the mantra for bringing 2026 closer to right living and the roadmap for all the years to come. Because maybe it’s not nonsense at all. Maybe it’s a message out of the mouths of babes to remind us how to keep going when the world feels like too much. Let’s listen. Let’s continue to throw ourselves six-sevenths of the time into the painful work of repairing what is broken. And let’s devote one-seventh of our lives to experiencing the emerging world. In this way, may we maintain the strength we need to build it.

Jericho Vincent is the founding rabbi of Temple of the Stranger, a Brooklyn-based community rooted in inclusive kabbalah. They are the author of the memoir “Cut Me Loose.”