Stages of Community: Aydah, Kehillah, Havurah, Minyan, Tzibbur

Stages of Community A coMMUNITY oF SHARED wITNEss An aydah serves as a focused organization to align a multitude of people together under a collective rubric to accomplish a specific task in the world. An aydah has coalesced to become a symbol of something, standing for a coherent theme to which their gatherings and lives give witness (ayd - witness). This community is functioning at a level where their mission is identifiable and imitatable by other communities who become allies and sister aydot. Inasmuch as the values of the aydah are being promoted into the larger world, their continuity as a social force over generations is more probable in comparison to a group whose values are unstated or privately shared but not promoted into the society .. A coNGREGATION A kehillah serves a broad band of ages and types of people. Kehillah suggests a mini-community, an assemblage -makhaylah) with different voices of many different people gathering together to form a symphony (::'T~::'Tj:)'1:. sounding in harmony. A kehillah may not have any defined purpose or theme other than to serve its multitudinous constituents. A FELLOWSHIP A havurah suggests a group of friends (c•-,:,. ri Haverim, friends) meeting together around a common purpose. This purpose may include living in proximity or sharing life celebrations together. Such a group of trusted haverim and haverot pursue common agreements such as studying and praying together. Because a havurah suggests friendship of peers, it does not contain enough strata of the society to be considered a kehilla, a complete congregation. Should a havurah grow to contain more and more types and ages of people, it might become a kehilla; should it grow in sense of purpose, mission, and vision, it could become an aydah. A NUMBER(usually, ten) Minyan means a number, and has come to mean ten people, the minimum number of praying congregants permitted by halacha (traditional Jewish law) to say certain Torah blessings, the Kaddish, Barekhu, and some other prayers. The terminology minyan , suggests that each participant is equal to the next, each person being counted as one no matter their expertise. Minyan therefore shows an egalitarianism of value, suggesting a grassroot acceptance, an ethic of valuing persons, and of standing in critique of the hierarchies that over-value one elite who "count" more than others. In a minyan each person is valued - as the feminist movement models the valuing of each woman of the sisterhood to be deserving of respect and support, especially when downtrodden or underdog . More than just an aggregate, a community that considers itself a minyan can have a very complex structure, as we see crystalline structures made up of equal units arranged in mathematical order, or pyramids and other structures made of the same units of blocks. Usually, though, a minyan suggests a smaller number of people. Minyans can have a structure with leaders and supporters as long as none gains overbearing power so that his/her voice becomes counted for more than just one. A minyan isn't a havurah however, if its members don't relate to each other with the warmth and understanding natural to friends and peers. ~i:,.::l Tzibbur THE PUBLIC Tzibbur speaks of a gathering of people, an aggregate, a collection of individuals with no particular structure, common theme or organization; just a random group collected together in space. The mess of dead frogs accumulating after the second plague in egypt was a -,:,.:, tzabor, a pile. Tzibbur is used to denote the "public" as in tzar'khay tzibbur, the needs of the community. Tzibbur is an acronym for Tzaddik, Benoni, Rasha, the three kinds of people who together make up a Tzibbur but may have no other common denominator other than that they sometimes gather together in one spot.