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Question 9.12:
What is the reason for a "minyon" (a quorum of 10 men requried for certain prayers)?

Note that the requirements for a minyan are not biblical in origin. The reasons are rabbinic. The following are some sources:

• M Megillah 4:3 and BT. Meg. 23b list the required occasions for a minyan: the sheva berakhot at a wedding; the chazarat ha-shatz of the Amidah; the reading of Torah from the scroll and of Haftarah; the kedusha (derived from Lev. 22:32, ve-nikdashti betokh benei yisra'el, matching the word tokh with Num. 16:21, mitokh ha-edah, where the context makes it clear that sanctification requires a public.

• The number 10 is derived from Num. 14:27, where the ten spies opposing the invasion were called an edah ra'ah. There were also other derivations, one of them being the "ten righteous people" that were lacking in Sodom.

• Soferim 10:7 adds Kaddish and barekhu to the rubrics requiring a minyan, though here, the plain text would suggest that the minyan could be seven (or even six) worshippers, after the number of words in Judges 5:2. But later interpretation favored the reading of this prescription as signifying that the numbers six or seven refer to persons who, within a regular minyan of ten men, have not heard the Kaddish or barekhu. If we read the Soferim passage plainly it appears that the author(s), writing in Palestine, meant to deal with situations when it was difficult to gather a minyan.

• The Talmud (YT Meg. 4:4 and Ber. 7:3 ) provides that if a minyan was present to start with, but some people had left afterwards, the service could conclude as if they were still present, provided that the majority remain (so Rambam, Yad, Tefillah 8:8, Sh. A. O. H, 55:4; and the Hafetz Chayim, Mishnah Berurah, # 24).

• Some people also cite the scene with Sodom and Gemorra as the reason for ten. Abraham's final offer to G-d was ten good men (which unfortunately were not found).

Note: If one cannot scrape up 10 minyan-qualified individuals (traditional Judaism only accepts adult men; Conservative Judaism often accepts women as well, particularly in the more egalitarian groups; Reform also accepts adult women), one can count the Torah as part of the Minyan. One can also count a minor holding a chumash, as long as the group looks like it could be 10 until you bother counting them. This is based on Tractate Berachos 47b. The source is that Abraham first begged G-d to save Sodom, Gemorra and 3 smaller towns if they had 50 people. He then fell back to 45. Apparantly, therefore, if you can't get 10 per city, you can rely on 9. But this is only if you can not possibly scrape up 10. One commentor also noted that besides the Torah, a member of the group can also free a slave. However, this generally doesn't make sense in the modern world. Nine people, with no Torah or slave, however, can never actually be a Minyan.

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