And thus we get the minyan.ĭoes it mean that God doesn’t hear us if, for instance, we say our nighttime Shema alone, or make a b’racha over a beautiful rainbow with only one friend present? No, it doesn’t mean that at all. Therefore an edah, an assembly must be ten people above the age of 13. So the rabbis asked how many do we need to get such an assembly, an edah? Well, that the same Hebrew word – edah – is applied to the ten spies who, in the time of Moses, gave a negative report of the Land of Israel. In Psalms it says Elohim nitzav ba’adat El, God stands in the divine assembly. They used some verbal gymnastics to deduce that we need 10 adult Jews to most easily get God’s attention. The ancient Rabbis came up with the idea that certain prayers could only be said in community. Minions might be bent upon following evil, but minyanim are bent upon following mitzvot! To Judaism when we get ten adults praying together it is mighty and powerful, not small or servile. Most of us recall that a minyan in Judaism is a quorum of ten adults required for a communal prayer service. But the term Minyan comes from the Hebrew word “to count,” and counting in Judaism is no inconsequential thing. In Despicable Me the term Minion comes from the French word mignon, for small, delicate or even insignificant as in Filet Mignon. I guess you could say that although the words Minion and Minyan sound just the same, in many ways they are almost polar opposites: In minionese it goes: Bebada Abam ta cep noor nos ta cep hana ![]() Of course we all know the Shema in Minyan, Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Ehad. Now the question is are we speaking Minion or Minyan?
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