Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 01:11, 18 January 2006

This article is about the term in Judaism. For other meanings, see Minyan (disambiguation).

Minyan (Hebrew: plural minyanim) is traditionally a quorum of ten or more adult (over the age of Bar Mitzvah) male Jews for the purpose of communal prayer; a minyan is often held within a synagogue, but may be (and often is) held elsewhere.

It is also used as a collective noun, as in "Do we have a Minyan?"

A single minyan may be one of several simultaneous prayer services within a synagogue. One synagogue (or any building) can have two or more minyanim meeting at the same time; for example, one Ashkenazi minyan and one Sephardi minyan, or one Orthodox minyan and one Conservative minyan, though the latter would typically only happen in a community center or other communally owned building.

Women are counted as part of the minyan in most non-Orthodox synagogues and prayer gatherings.

Laws

According to halakha (Jewish law), a minyan is required for many parts (D'varim She Ba Kodesh "Holy utterances") of the communal prayer service, including Barechu, Kaddish, repetition of the Amidah, the priestly blessing, and the Torah and Haftarah readings. Women are not required to pray with a minyan, and thus Judaism has traditionally counted only men in the minyan for formal prayer.

Rabbinic Judaism teaches that all men and women are obligated to pray to God each day, but the formal requirements for prayer are different for the sexes. Classical rabbinic authorities are in agreement that men are required to pray from a set liturgy three times a day; however, they were of varied opinions as to precisely what the requirements were for women. In the last 300 years many traditional rabbis have followed a trend in which women are seen as being required to follow many (though not all) of the same requirements as men.

The 19th century posek Yechiel Michel Epstein, author of the Arukh HaShulkhan, notes: "Even though the rabbis set prayer at fixed times in fixed language, it was not their intention to issue a leniency and exempt women from this ritual act". One of the most important codes of law in Ashkenazi Orthodox Judaism (outside of Hasidic Judaism) is the Mishnah Berurah by Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan. He holds that the Men of the Great Assembly obligated women to say Shacharit (morning) and Minchah (afternoon) prayer services each day, "just like men". He further states that although women are technically exempt from reciting the Shema Yisrael, they should nevertheless say it anyway. In Conservative Judaism, most rabbis hold this view as well. However, many Jews still rely on the ruling of the (Ashkenazi) Rabbi Avraham Gombiner in his Magen Avraham commentary on the Shulkhan Arukh (section Orach Chayim 106:2), and more recently the (Sephardi) Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (Yabiah Omer vol. 6, 17), that women are only required to pray once a day, in any form they choose, so long as the prayer contains praise of (brakhot), requests to (bakashot), and thanks of (hodot) God.

While women are not required to pray with a minyan, it is commonly believed that Jewish law requires that men pray in a minyan, but this not exactly correct. None of the Mishnah, Talmud or later codes of Jewish law hold this as requirement. Rather, it is described as a preferred activity, but not as mandatory. The Shulkhan Arukh (section Orach Chayim 90:9) says "A person should make every effort to attend services in a synagogue with a quorum; if circumstances prevent him from doing so, he should pray, wherever he is, at the same time that the synagogue service takes place". According to the author (Rabbi Yosef Karo), no Jew has an obligation to public prayer. That said, communal prayer, which requires a minyan, is historically viewed as an almost-obligation—while not a requirement, it is regarded as anti-social to not join in communal prayer.

Men have no halakhic obligation to pray in a minyan. It is, nevertheless, strongly encouraged. According to Maimonides in his Mishneh Torah (Hilkhot Tefillah 8.1):

The prayer of the community is always heard; and even if there were sinners among them ], the Holy One, blessed be He, never rejects the prayer of the multitude. Hence a person must join himself with the community, and should not pray by himself so long as he is able to pray with the community. And a person should always go to the synagogue morning and evening, for his prayer is only heard at all times in the synagogue. And whoever has a synagogue in his city and does not pray there with the community is called a bad neighbor.

Origin

A common misconception is that the requirement of ten to constitute a quorum comes from the fact that Abraham stopped decreasing his requests for God to spare Amora (Gomorrah) and Sedom (Sodom) at ten "righteous" individuals (Genesis 18). In fact, the requirement comes from the sin of the spies (Numbers 14:27), in which the ten spies who bring a negative report of the land of Israel are referred to as an eidah or congregation (Babylonian Talmud Megillah 23b), though the Jerusalem Talmud (Megillah 4,4) relates it to the ten brothers of Joseph who went down to Egypt to get food during a famine. The quorum of ten men is also referred to in the Book of Ruth 4:2.

The number 10 for a minyan may not always have been consistent throughout history either. It is related in the Babylonian Talmud, in Masechet Soferim (10:7), that in Palestine, sometimes as few as 6 (i.e., one more than half of 10) men were counted as sufficient to say communal prayers.

Customs

Some congregations (based on the Shulkhan Arukh section Orach Chayim 55) will include a boy touching a Torah scroll or holding a printed Tanakh as the tenth person if a minyan can be formed in no other way.

Changes in non-Orthodox forms of Judaism

In the mid 20th century some congregations in Reform Judaism and Conservative Judaism began counting women as part of the minyan. Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis do not see themselves as bound by halakha, and the movements are committed to the equality of the sexes, rejecting historical practices that draw distinctions on the basis of gender; thus they disregard the traditional prohibition of counting women as part of a minyan. Conservative rabbis do see halakha as binding, and did not generally accept this practice until several responsa were offered by rabbis that attempted to justify this practice as in accord with halakha. These responsa were accepted by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly (though Orthodox Jews do not accept their validity). Since that time the practice of accepting women as part of the minyan has spread to all of Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism, and most Conservative Jewish synagogues.

Changes in Orthodox forms of Judaism

A minyan shivyoni hilchati (shivyoni=equitable, hilchati=in accordance with Jewish law), a recent development in Orthodox Judaism, is minyan which attempts to create expanded opportunties for women to participate within the context of Orthodox halacha. The approach takes advantages of recently-expressed opinions in liberal Orthodox circles permitting women to lead certain parts of the prayer service and, most importantly, be called to and read from the Torah and haftorah on Shabbat.

These minyanim arose as a result of a theoretical debate published in the Modern Orthodox publication EDAH Journal, in which Rabbis Mendel Shapiro and Daniel Sperber argued that an expanded participational role for women was permissable within Orthodox halakha under certain conditions and with certain limitations. See Rabbi Mendel Shapiro, “Qeri’at ha-Torah by Women: A Halakhic Analysis and Rabbi Daniel Sperber, “Congregational Dignity and Human Dignity: Women and Public Torah Reading”. See also Rabbi Yehudah Hertzl Henkin, "Qeri’at ha-Torah by Women: Where We Stand Toda"y providing a counterargument against this position.

A minyan shivyoni hilchati attempts to implement the conditions expressed in these articles, accepting the limitations involved.

A key element of the halakhic approach involves an argument for the reinterpretation of the following passage from the Talmud, Megilla 23a:

"Our rabbis taught: All may be numbered among the seven , even a minor and even a woman, but the Sages said: a woman is not to read from the Torah on account of kevod ha-tsibur .")

The essence of Rabbi Shapiro's and Rabbi Sperber's argument was to resolve the contradiction between what "our Rabbi taught" and what "the Sages said" by arguing, by comparing the use of similar phrases in other parts of the Talmud, that what "our rabbis taught" tradionally represents binding law, while what the Sages' said traditionally represents mere sage advice, not binding law. Since they claimed that the prohibition on women reading the Torah represents mere advice while the permission represents the actual law, they argued that rabbis of today are accordingly permitted to consider whether the advice should continued to be followed. They believe, for a number of reasons familiar to feminists, that it shouldn't be.

Minyanim following this approach take care to accept, and not go beyond, conditions and limitations involved in the underlying legal arguments. For example, because the halakhic source for permitting women to read from the Torah pertains to a passage from the Talmud involving Shabbat, aminyanim following this halakhic approach do not permit women's torah reading on weekdays. Their willingness to accept only what can be justified by references to traditional Jewish sources forms the core of the claim of these minyanim to be legitimately Orthodox.

Such a minyan includes a number of liturgical innovations:

Participants in a minyan shivyoni hilchati voluntarily agree not to begin public worship without at least 10 women as well as 10 men present. Thus, while such a minyan complies with the orthodox requirement of 10 men, it creates a de facto egalitarianism.

A mechitzah (partition separating men's and women's sections) is maintained as in any Orthodox minyan, but it alwys goes up the middle. Men and women do not appear in the same place at the same time. Women lead services from the women's side and men from the men's side. The Torah is read from a table right in the middle of the mechitzah. Women read from the Torah when a woman is called to say the blessings, and men read from the Torah when a man is called to say the blessings. A male and a female gabbai (assistant) attend the Torah reading, each from their respective sides.

Men and women each lead specific parts of the service, and their leadership is interleaved so that each does about half the service. On Friday night women lead Kabbalat Shabbat and men lead Maariv. On Saturday morning women lead Psukei D'Zimra, men lead Shacharit, women lead the Torah service, and men lead mussaf. Although men and women rotate leadership in even fashion and the service has an egalitarian feel, such a minyan is not strictly egalitarian. There remain certain parts of the service (parts of Shacharit and Mussaf) that only men are permitted to lead,and men always lead them. The Orthodox idea that men and women are complementary, not interchangeable, is preserved.

When the Torah is paraded around the congregation, a women takes it through the women's section, the Torah is passed over the mechitza, and a man takes it through the men's section.

Such a minyan represents an experimental, somewhat controversial development in Orthodox Judiasm which has by no means been universally accepted in Orthodoxy.

One of the first and leading examples of such a minyan is Kehilat Shira Hadasha in Jerusalem, Others include in Chicago, IL and Darchai Noam in New York, NY.

External links

GoDaven.com - Find a Minyan Worldwide Shira Hadasha, A Minyan Shivyoni Hilchati in Jerusalem

• Jewish law and rituals
• Hebrew words