This is what the LORD Almighty says: “In those days ten people from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, ‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.’” – Zechariah 8:23

Today’s Scripture Reading (July 23, 2017): Zechariah 8

I hate to admit how much of my Jewish history and theology I have learned through the music of bands like “The Maccabeats” (even if a friend of mine decries their accents when they sing in Hebrew.) But music has always been a great way for me to learn something new. One of my favorite “Maccabeat” songs is “Minyan Man.” But as a Christian, the song was also my introduction into the term minyan. A minyan is essentially ten Jewish men over the age of 13 that are required for traditional Jewish worship. In some more progressive congregations, it is ten men or women. In some circumstances, a double minyan made up of ten men and ten women is required. “Minyan Man,” tells the story of a Jewish congregation in which one person had died, leaving only nine. The song says it this way –

            We walked down Winston Avenue a block then two more

            And went into a shop that read closed on the door

There was a minyan at the back of a hardware store

Nine men waiting for one more.

The nine men were incomplete. A minyan required ten.

Maybe the logical question is why ten. As a Christian, Jesus seemed to counter the idea of a minyan when he said: “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20). But there was something special in Jewish thought about the number ten, the number that made up a minyan. There are Ten Commandments, when he created us he gave us ten fingers, and mathematically ten is an arithmetic base number (although I know that my math friends will argue that that is not necessarily true.) Ten carries some distinction in our thoughts. It is a number that seems to indicate completeness.

And so Zechariah says that at some point in the future, ten people from all languages and nations will take hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe for no other reason than that they had heard that God was with him. Ten people; a minyan; a complete congregation.

As Christians, we read these words and recognize that the minyan that Zechariah was speaking of was us. We, a complete congregation, have taken hold of Jesus, one Jew, for no other reason than that we know that God is with him. And we desire that God is with us. That he will draw all nations to himself, and in the process that we will be a blessing on all the Minyans of the earth.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Zechariah 9