FAQs

No, we welcome everybody, regardless of faith. However, our workshops are presented in a welcoming Jewish context.

If you want to explore sharing your light with the world in a non-Jewish context, you can do so through our secular sister non-profit, The Illumignossi Project.

Six Million Lights is NOT about making lamps but about making meaning, intention and light. If you just want to make a lamp, GREAT! You can do so through Illumignossi [web link] which sells lamp making kits and helps fund The Illumignossi Project and OrLanu.

It’s Hebrew for Our Light. “Or” means light. “Lanu” means ours.

Light is such a powerful theme. In the Hebrew Bible, God’s first words are: “Let there be light.” Light has so many symbolic meanings in various cultures. And if you think about it, light is what makes life possible.

OrLanu is our 501(c)(3). 6 Million Lights is a project of OrLanu. Although 6 Million Lights is OrLanu’s major project, OrLanu also offers workshops outside of 6 Million Lights.

6 Million Lights honors the 6 Million Jewish victims of the Holocaust (also known as the Shoah) by creating 6 Million “living lights”. Secondarily, it refers to the 6 Million lamplights that our participants will be creating, each a luminous memorial to the 6 Million victims of the Holocaust, reminding us to put more light into the world.

Each lamplight is numbered sequentially and goes into our database. And yes, if you’re wondering, a given participant may make more than one lamplight by attending more than one workshop. And….some participants may attend workshops without actually making a lamp. We count lamplights and participants separately and maintain two separate counts, but we number only our lamplights.

There is a general consensus that were was a total of 11 Million victims of the Holocaust. Some of our participants dedicate their lamplights to the 11 Million rather than the 6 Million and we’re fine with that. And perhaps when we reach our goal of 6 Million, we’ll then set our sights on 11 Million because every victim of the Holocaust deserves to be honored. Besides, wouldn’t our world be better off with 11 Million lviing lights as compared to 6 Million?

The answer is yes and no. While it honors the 6 Million Jewish victims of the Holocaust, its primary objective is NOT Holocaust education, and so is unlike most other Holocaust projects which focus on education and historicity. Rather, our primary objective is to bring more light into the world as a way to truly honor the 6 Million.

We’re primarily about fostering positive social transformation through positive personal change. We facilitate personal reflection, communal conversation and sharing of wisdom, using lamp-making workshops as our tool. In addition, participants bring the workshop process home with them through the lamps they’ve made, which serve as reminders of the intentions and meanings brought to the lamp making.

While our Light of Our Survivors initiative has a very direct connection to the Holocaust, we also provide a range of different light-making initiatives spanning the life cycle. Given the immensity and challenge of grappling with the Holocaust, we recognize and honor a wide spectrum of initiatives, but in all of our workshops, we create a space to acknowledge the 6 Million.

Yes. Of course!

Yes, one of the initiatives of 6 Million Lights, is Light of Our Survivors, which honors Survivors as well as their descendants through light making workshops.

To honor Survivors of the Holocaust as well as their descendants by honoring the light they’ve found in their lives and shared with the world.

No! In fact the majority of our participants fall into neither category. They participate in order to honor Survivors and descendants, to learn from them and most important – to nurture their own light and share it with the world.

Of course! We offer different workshops in our various different initiatives, and each is a unique experience.

Yes, we are developing web-based workshop experiences.