Q&A: How do we know a minyan needs a majority who have not yet prayed?
How do we know a minyan needs a majority who have not yet prayed?
Question
Hello Rabbi, yesterday I was in a synagogue and there were only five of us who had not yet prayed Mincha, and another five who had already prayed. Is there some law that requires a majority who have not prayed? My question is: what is the source for that? We were also wondering whether at least Kaddish and Tachanun could be said in that situation…
Answer
There is no clear source for this. The discussion begins from the law of “spreading over the Shema,” and the question is what the status of the other listeners is supposed to be. The medieval authorities (Rishonim) disagreed about this: some were uncertain whether even one is enough, some required five, six, or seven, and some required that none of them had yet prayed.
See an overview, for example, here:
http://olamot.net/shiur/%D7%9E%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%9F-%D7%A2%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%94
By reasoning, I would say that Kaddish can certainly be recited, since there what is required is that there be ten in order to say a matter of holiness, and here there are ten. Joining for a minyan is not necessarily connected to the issue of a matter of holiness; rather, there simply need to be ten people praying (and therefore there it makes sense to require that none of them have yet prayed, or at least that a majority counts as the whole).