Spirit and Story

We commonly round numbers, especially large ones.  Anything more offers detail that is superfluous.  Who would desire to know the price of a car to its last dollar?  The population of a city to its last person?  The length of an airplane flight to its last minute?  Roundness mercifully spares us meaningless details. 

Six million is a rounded number. 

It is the symbol that designates the Jewish lives lost during the Holocaust.  Its very roundness implies a loss of unimportant detail.  But the smallest possible unit counted by this symbol is a human life, a detail that can never be without meaning, a detail that, in fact, contains all meaning for anyone conscious enough to reflect upon it.   

Six million is a symbol that does not fully honor those Jews who perished under Nazi decree.  Its roundness is not merciful. 

There is a number, however, which retains the magnitude of six million, but adds detail.  That number is six million and one. 

Six million and one Jews died in the Holocaust. 

Six million and one is a symbol of inherent contrast and tension, sharpening its power to awaken our consciousness.  The greatest and the smallest are contained in it, each informing the other.  The one informs the six million, its very presence highlighting that six million is actually one plus one plus one…six million times, stretched out in an endless row of numbers.  It heightens our awareness of the infinite worth of each life lost.   

And the six million informs the one.  Every person was executed by virtue of belonging to a greater whole, the Jewish people.  The one is entwined with the six million and cannot be separated. 

Despite the unimaginable death it designates, six million and one has the potential to inspire, to affirm Jewish life and its mission.  Six million and one echoes our revered and ancient declaration of faith, the Shema.  Its very utterance connects us to the Divine, whose essence can never be extinguished.   

Shema Israel, Adonai Elohainu, Adonai echad

Sesh million ve echad

…Adonai echad…ve echad

...echad

It recalls our beloved and martyred Rabbi Akiva, who perished in his own holocaust.  As flames consumed his flesh, he declared the Shema, emphasizing its final word, ehcad, with his last breath. 

The physical characteristics of the new symbol also have the power to affirm living.  Six million and one ends with a numeral that is perfectly upright, firmly grounded as it ascends upward.  A human body resembling this shape connotes strength and power, unbowed and triumphant as it strives to bring divinity to earth.  Six million, however, ends with a zero, best represented in human form by the fetal position, a state of abject defeat, depletion and surrender. 

Out of the ashes of our brothers and sisters, we arise resolute in our mission to redeem each of their deaths by affirming the sanctity of all life and creation.

Six million and one Jews died in the Holocaust.  Many, many more will survive to honor them.

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