I understand that it requires a quorum of 10 adult (bar mitzva’s) jews for communal worship, but why 10, or any other for that matter?
Also, I understand that god hears a single prayer as well as he hears 10 or 10 million. What is the meaning/benefit of such a quorum?
I was going to say that it is used to haul the kids to soccer practice, but then I read the post closer…
From the ever-helpful JewFaq:
Slightly off-topic but …
One of my favorite “Northern Exposure” episodes was when Joel’s grandfather dies and he is asked to sit shiva (sp?) for him. Since he is the only Jew in town, Maurice sends out the words that he’s looking for Jews, and he’ll pay. One funny dream sequence of a Jewish posse, riding up on horses like Clint Eastwood.
Has a very touching ending, as you might expect. But still, mercenary Jews has a nice ring to it. Maybe it could be a band name. 
That’s a fairly clever bit of community maintenance. Unfortunately it probably also goes a long way to explain why there were not very many Jewish explorers. Imagine having to drag out 10 men and their families to find a new passage to the far east. Never mind that you can’t get even two jews to agree in which direction they should go. 
Why ten? Why not seven or eleven? Rabbinic legend traces this back to the Biblical story in Genesis. God tells Abraham that He is going to destroy the city of Sodom. Abraham haggles, saying, “You are a just God, you would not destroy the innocent along with the guilty, would you spare the city if there were 100 good people?” The haggling gets down to ten – that God would spare the city for the sake of ten decent people. (In the end, there ain’t even ten, so Sodom gets blasted.) Thus, ten is the minimum number of decent people required for survival in the face of evil, and so ten was chosen as the minimum number for communal prayer.
Throughout the Bible, ten is a number of completeness – Ten Commandments, ten generations between Adam and Noah, ten generations between Noah and Abraham, ten plagues on Egypt, etc.
OK, so we’ve already had the comments on community prayer compared to individual prayer.
A few additional comments. The presence of ten creates communal prayer, required (for example) for ceremonial reading of the Torah, saying the memorial prayer, etc. There are special prayers added for a group (for example, a lengthy silent devotion is repeated aloud by the leader.) Fewer than ten, it’s individuals praying together; ten or more, it’s a community praying.
The role of prayer in traditional Judaism is different from its role in traditional Christianity. In traditional Judaism, prayer replaced sacrifice when the Temple was destroyed; prayer is therefore an obligation, part of the requirement of being called God’s first-born (Chosen), rather than a pouring out of the soul. Much of prayer in Judaism is therefore ritualized rather than internalized.
Final comment. Other ancient peoples were conquered and disappeared. Judaism survived, survived the destruction of its center (the Temple in Jerusalem). One reason for that survival was the earlier invention of community prayer, in local synagogues, that helped bind the people together (since you needed to find ten), even when scatterred around the globe. Thus, Jews tended to live together (even if not forced to do so), which undoubtedly helped to preserve the traditions and the people-hood.
QuickSilver:
I’m having trouble coming up with the exact verse, but there’s a Biblical verse that says “And I shall be sanctified amongst the community of the children of Israel.” In that verse (which I’ll post when I dig it up), the Bible uses the word “Adath” for “community.”
“Adath” (or its stand-alone form, “Edah”…“Adath” means community of, “Edah” simply means “community”) is used to refer to the spies in Numbers 14:27: “How long will this wicked community (“Edah”) grumble against me?” The spies were ten adult males, and in the entire Bible, this is the smallest number that was ever referred to by the word “Edah.” Hence, ten adult males is considered the minimum necessary for forming the “community” necessary to fulfill the commandment of sanctifying G-d’s name through certain prayers as indicated in the first verse I mentioned.
According to the view of Orthodox Judaism, there are two reasons:
The bigger the crowd, the greater an honor that crowd is showing G-d, just as if a celebrity was going to be the headliner at a dinner, how much the celebrity is esteemed can be gauged by the crowd that turns out.
The benefit of communal prayer is that when people pray together as a community (requiring that minimum of ten), they are seen as a single unit, and the shortcomings of one of them are made up for by the lack of those shortcomings in another. A certain individual might not deserve to have his prayers answered because, for example, he doesn’t give enough charity. When he is viewed as part of the community, the community most likely includes more charitable people, and the worthiness of the prayer to be answered is then judged based on the entire community as a whole.
Chaim,
Right word, wrong verse.
It comes from Numbers 14:27 “Ad masai l’eidah…”
God asks (referring to the 12 spies who went into Israel) “'How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, that keep murmuring against Me?” Excluding the two (Joshua and Caleb) who did not complain about Israel, that leaves 10. That’s where the derivation of a minyan equaling 10 comes from.
Zev Steinhardt
Just a follow-up, here’s how the Talmud derives the ten = minyan thing:
The first verse I was thinking of is Leviticus 22:32 - “And I will be declared holy amongst (Hebrew: “B’Tokh”) the children of Israel.”
What does it mean by “amongst”? Amongst just how many of the children of Israel? The Talmud cross-references “B’Tokh” to the word “MiTokh” in Numbers 16:21: “Separate from amongst (“MiTokh”) this community (Hebrew: “Edah”)”. This tells us that the “holy declaration” must be amongst an “Edah.” How many is an “Edah”? Minimum ten, as above.
Chaim Mattis Keller