In a small town in the Galilee, ten devout individuals would
gather daily to pray in their small synagogue.
Each fellow knew that the minyan depended on him. If he would fail to appear, there would be no
kaddish, no kedushah, and no Torah reading.
One day, nine of them arrived in shul and waited and waited. They tried contacting their friend, but were
unsuccessful.
“Don’t worry,” said the gabbai (warden), “I’ll go out and
find a tenth man.” Minutes later he’d
returned with the tenth and the service proceeded. At the end of the service, he walked the
visitor out and came back with a bill for 135 shekels. “It wasn’t hard to convince that fellow,” the
warden admitted, “I simply called a cab and told him to run the meter. Would each of you now pay me your 15 shekel
share in the mitzvah?”
“That which is crooked cannot be fixed and that which is
deficient cannot be counted” (Eccles.1:15). “That which is crooked cannot be
fixed” refers to one who missed the recitation of the Shema of the evening or
the recitation of the Shema of the morning.
“And that which is deficient cannot be counted” refers to one whose
friends elected to perform a mitzvah and he elected not to be counted amongst
them.
As you can imagine, the members of the minyan in that
Galilee synagogue were not enthused by the warden’s stunt. Upon posing the question of payment
obligation to Rabbi Yitzchok Zilberstein, he ruled that they were not obligated
to recompense him. Nor was the warden
required to foot the bill either. The
duty to pay was incumbent upon the fellow who slept in and let his friends
down! The only scenario that would have necessitated
their payment would have been an emergency that had impeded their friend’s
attendance. If he’d suddenly been rushed
to hospital, for example, he would not have incurred the payment
obligation. In such a case, they would
all have had to pitch in and cover the costs.
Rabbi Zilberstein based this ruling on a halacha (law) that
states that members of a town can exact payment from each member to contribute
towards the building of a synagogue. If
building a synagogue allows for a certain amount of coerced payment obligation,
then certainly the maintenance of a local minyan – a prerequisite to the
synagogue service – would allow for an element of financial coercion.
The Maharsha explains the Gemara’s connection between the
two clauses of the verse in Kohelet (Ecclesiastes). The first clause refers to the recitation of
the Shema. He infers that the second
clause is about the recitation of the Shemoneh Esreh (thrice-daily prayer
service) and the duty to pray with a minyan.
Whilst praying alone is okay, it is not ideal. If your friends were prepared to be counted
for the minyan, where were you?
The same goes for other communal activities. The concept of minyan is a powerful reminder
for everything we do. An important
aspect of being part of the community is the humility to acknowledge that ‘no
man is an island.’ The success of a
community depends on each of us joining in with the projects and initiatives of
other community members. If every person
was only willing to participate in and contribute to projects that they
initiated, the community would fail to launch to the next level. Community membership means community
involvement. It means being counted
amongst the participants in as many of the community activities as possible,
regardless of who is driving the programme.
Successful communities are made up of a multitude of humble
personalities. We need personalities
to drive community success. At the same
time, however, we need humility to recognize the importance of
supporting and joining the initiatives of every personality in the
community. May you merit the humility to
be a community builder!
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