It’s an exercise put forth by Larry Smith, Brooklyn-based editor-in-chief of SMITH, an online magazine that is home to participatory storytelling, both short and long form, and a cottage industry known as the Six-Word Memoir.

More exactly, Smith is asking readers and followers, and anyone else for that matter, to describe the essence of their Jewish story in six words – no more and no less.

In the age of texting and tweeting and the like, this might not seem a stretch. But this one demands equal doses of inner reflection, creativity, and brevity.

Submissions from just about everywhere are already streaming on a dedicated page on SMITH. And by the deadline of Dec. 25, the sixth night of Chanukah, the hope is for a few thousand entries.

The best of these will be published in the spring in a book tentatively titled Oy! Only Six Words? Why Not More?

The project is a joint affair of SMITH Magazine and Reboot, an organization seeking to reinvigorate Jewish life, culture and traditions in younger generations.

So why the six-word limit? True to SMITH Magazine’s mission giving people a platform to share narratives, it’s a play on a literary legend that has Ernest Hemingway challenged in a bar to write a six-word novel.

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn,” the 20^th century novelist and journalist wrote.

“The short form gets us talking,” said Smith, speaking in six-word sentences himself. “It is a catalyst for discussion. It is absolutely never the end.”

Share your “Six Words on the Jewish Life” at SMITH Magazine.