Minyan

In Judaism, a minyan (Hebrew: מניין \ מִנְיָן mīnyān [minˈjan], lit. (noun) count, number; pl. מניינים \ מִנְיָנִים‎ mīnyānīm [minjaˈnim]) is the quorum of ten Jewish adults required for certain religious obligations. In more traditional streams of Judaism, only men 13 and older may constitute a minyan; the minimum of 10 Jews needed for a meeting has its origin^{[citation needed]} in Abraham's prayer to God in Genesis 18:23. The minyan also has its origin in judicial structure of ancient Israel as Moses first established it in Exodus 18:25 (i.e., the "rule of the 10s").^[1] This we find reiterated in Cyrus Adler’s and Lewis N. Dembitz’s “Minyan,” Jewish Encyclopedia, stating: "The minimum of ten is evidently a survival in the Synagogue from the much older institution in which ten heads of families made up the smallest political subdivision. In Ex. xviii. Moses, on the advice of Jethro, appoints chiefs of tens, as well as chiefs of fifties, of hundreds, and of thousands. In like manner there were the decurio among the Romans and the tithingman among the early English."^[2]

The most common activity requiring a minyan is public prayer. Accordingly, the term minyan in contemporary Judaism has taken on the secondary meaning of referring to a prayer service.