The minyan is the quorum of ten Jewish adults required to fulfill certain religious obligations. The requirement to have a minyan is not stipulated as such in the Torah. It is a halachic rule established by the rabbis, who deduced it after interpreting several biblical verses. One of them is Leviticus 22:32, which says: «And I will be sanctified among the children of Israel.» Another is Leviticus 19:2, which says: «Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them: You shall be holy.» A third verse is Numbers 14:27, which says: «How long shall I be able to bear this evil congregation that murmurs against me?» referring to ten of the twelve spies who returned with negative news about what they saw in the Land of Israel. From these and other verses in the Torah, the rabbis in the Mishnah concluded that a congregation of at least 10 members is required to sanctify God.

Rabbi Abraham P. Bloch explains that the first mention of the requirement for 10 to perform certain religious rites is in the Mishnah, in the second century CE. But it is known that in the Qumran sect, several centuries before the Mishnah, their codes stated “that wherever there were 10, a priest versed in the Book of Study should not be absent.” It is clear that the rule of having 10 men was firmly established even before Qumran.

In tractate Megillah 4:3 of the Mishnah, the rabbis established what religious obligations require having a minyan. These are: when reciting the «Shema,» in the blessing for the cohanim, for reading the Torah and the Haftarah, when saying Kaddish, Barechu, Kedushah, and the repetition of the Amidah, when consoling the mourners, when blessing the bride and groom, and when giving grace after the meal.

Bloch continues: The requirement of ten men for a quorum in religious services is more than a technicality. Indeed, this rule has had a far-reaching effect on the organization of Jewish communal life. This requirement mandated that there be at least ten families when Jewish communities were established in new places.

The Talmud itself does not directly address the question of whether women can count as part of a minyan for «devarim shebkdusha,» the religious rites that require a minyan. In Orthodox Judaism, only men can constitute a minyan. In liberal Judaism, women are also counted. Reform Jews were the first in Jewish life to include women in counting a minyan. At the 1845 Frankfurt Rabbinical Conference, Rabbi Samuel Adler proposed a resolution declaring that women «have the same obligation as men to participate from youth in the teaching of Judaism and in public religious services, and that the custom of not including women in the number of people required for the performance of a service is only a custom and has no religious basis.»

In 1973, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of Conservative Judaism voted that men and women count equally in a minyan. In 2002, the Committee adopted a responsum by Rabbi David Fine, which provides the official basis in religious law for women to count in a minyan. However, each Conservative community may decide whether or not to include women in the minyan. The word minyan in Hebrew translates as the noun «count» or «number» (the count or the number) and does not mean «ten,» although we all think of «10» when we say minyan. From the texts found in the Qumran caves, we know that the requirement of having at least 10 people in a religious rite is an ancient custom that, with some modifications, especially the inclusion of women, has been preserved by all religious movements.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Articles written by Abraham P. Bloch, Cyrus Adler, Lewis N. Dembitz, Michael Leo Samuels, Leon Morris, and other sources.