Harnessing the Power of Ten
The Minyan of Thinkers channels the brainpower of ten young people to grapple with our community's most pressing issues. We develop our ideas in an intellectually open and safe space that allows us to come up with new approaches to challenges facing our community.
The power of ten concept we have adopted is based in the Jewish tradition of "minyan", or quorum of ten for public prayer. In Jewish tradition, the community waits for ten people to begin a public prayer service because of how powerful it considers the combined energy of the group. Similarly, we build on the collective spiritual and intellectual energy of our members to create a powerful group of thinkers and doers. We don't need exactly ten, but we usually like to have 10-15 members in each cohort.
The power of ten concept we have adopted is based in the Jewish tradition of "minyan", or quorum of ten for public prayer. In Jewish tradition, the community waits for ten people to begin a public prayer service because of how powerful it considers the combined energy of the group. Similarly, we build on the collective spiritual and intellectual energy of our members to create a powerful group of thinkers and doers. We don't need exactly ten, but we usually like to have 10-15 members in each cohort.
What Makes Us Different
Our model of learning is unique because it is sustained, active, challenging, grounded in scholarly texts, lay-led, and has no religious or ideological framework. This isn't a passive lecture, and it's not a Bible study that has certain ideas about how to see the world. We don't have a religious leader or professor leading us- we dig into the texts ourselves and figure out how we understand it. We meet monthly to build a positive community and push through challenging issues. We aren't trying to come to a resolution- rather we want to create a space where people can flesh out their own thoughts and arguments, and come away with a stronger sense of their own voice on an issue that is typically dominated by extreme, polarizing voices.
