By Eileen Silver:
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Eileen Silver. Ellen Kachuck Rosenbluth and I were the founding Chairs of the Little Minyan… and I could not think of a more capable, fun, musically talented and dedicated person to have collaborated with on this labour of love.
I will say that this D’var Torah is actually not a collaborative effort of the two of us….but after 30 years…daily phone calls and texts… and a vibe of the Little Minyan coursing through our respective veins….I feel confident that these words are likely not far off the mark for Ellen as well… and in case if I haven’t gotten it quite right, we will give her and other Little Minyanaires a few minutes during kiddush to set the record straight.
Parshat Vayeshev is the beginning of Joseph’s story: Joseph’s father gives him a special coat, and he has dreams of his brothers bowing down to him. Out of malice, the brothers sell Joseph into slavery to traders who bring him to Egypt. There, he becomes the chief servant of Potiphar, who himself served Pharaoh. Potiphar’s wife unsuccessfully tries to seduce Joseph and gets him sent to jail. There, he correctly interprets the dreams of Pharaoh’s cupbearer and baker.
But the Parsha itself starts with Jacob. The first verse begins,
ויַּשֵֶׁב יעַקֲֹב בּאְרֶֶץ מְגוּריֵ אבִָיו, בּאְרֶֶץ כְּנעַָן
“Now Jacob was settled in the land where his father had lived.”
Right from the beginning, we never saw the Little Minyan as a breakaway from Beth Tzedec. We always wanted to dwell in the land of our fathers. And we were inspired by, and grateful for the pivotal role of Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl, who supported our initiative, and helped stickhandle it through the shul process, at a time when some of the shul fathers were not sure they wanted us, so to speak, living in their lands.
For me, two significant themes and ideas emerge from this parashah that are particularly relevant to the celebration of the 30th anniversary milestone of the Little Minyan today.
The first of these themes is the significance of quiet actions and hidden blessings. So many of the key components of the Joseph story happen from behind the scenes through the actions of what, in Donny Osmond’s version, might be referred to as supporting actors:
- There is Reuven… one of Joseph’s brothers…who convinces his brothers to cast Joseph into a pit rather than killing him.
- Another of Joseph’s brothers, Judah, successfully persuades his brothers to sell Joseph into slavery and spare him from death
- Then there is Potiphar’s wife …not what I’d call an eshet chayil… But her actions against Joseph serve as a crucial turning point in a story that leads to Joseph’s imprisonment and his encounters with Pharoh’s cupbearer and baker.
- And there is the prison warden who is so impressed by Joseph’s character and skills that he entrusts all the prisoners into Joseph’s care…. which in turn sets in motion the events that ultimately allow Joseph to fulfill his prophetic destiny of interpreting dreams.
The point being that these four supporting actors, and the many others that make up Joseph’s story, served to shape his destiny.
And that brings me to the Little Minyan and its cast. I would assert that the Little Minyan has survived and thrived throughout these 30 years with the benefit of committed leadership from laypeople and professionals alike, including 19 different Chairs of the Minyan and six rabbinic advisors. And you have seen some of these wonderful individuals who were called up to the Torah for their well-deserved honours this morning…. There is no doubt that these leaders have been a strong force behind the vision of the Little Minyan. But at the heart of our Minyan’s survival has been the hidden work of literally hundreds of people…. and I do mean hundreds – of dedicated people who have stepped up and helped to sustain the Little Minyan:
- Those who worked diligently every week in pursuit of torah readers, daveners, and people willing to deliver a d’var Torah;
• who poured grape juice or brought cupcakes for kiddush;
• who sight read an Aliyah from the Torah, because 2 people were accidentally assigned the same Aliyah;
• who felt comfortable in having their very first Aliyah to the Torah (and 30 years ago, there were many of us women in that position… myself included);
• who organized meals for shivas; - and those who just came out because they found that the Little Minyan enhanced their Jewishness
Like the Joseph story…. The Little Minyan has persevered and thrived because of all of you, past and present.
Moving on to a second item in the parashah that struck me as relevant to today’s celebration…. Namely the special coat that Jacob bestowed on Joseph. I have always loved the wondrous magical notion of the K’tonet Hapasim … the special coat that Jacob gave to his favoured son, Joseph. I’m going to forgo discussing the difficulties inherent in Jacob favouring one child over another, and just focus on my own cheesy, shmaltzy, Broadway and dreamy view of Joseph’s multi-coloured coat.
Because on a milestone anniversary for a minyan like ours, I think the coat takes on a deeper and uplifting meaning. I see the K’tonet Hapasim as a metaphor for the Little Minyan itself over its thirty years: a coat woven from many threads that symbolizes different communities of people over the years. Each thread contributed something unique, and together they formed a single, beautiful garment.
Over 30 years we have represented not one static minyan… but many evolving minyanim.
Very few of you present here today were at our inaugural service in December 1995……. We should take this as a positive sign.. a sign that the Little Minyan has undergone many renewals and lots of redefining of itself. A renewing community made up of participants with different backgrounds, personalities, strengths and stories. What has made the Minyan strong over the years has not been uniformity, but the ability to grow the coat that was passed on, by weaving into it something that is distinct and, to steal an adjective, … amazing!
When reminiscing about the past 30 years, Ellen and I scanned LM mailing lists over the years… what fun to see all of those many names from the past. This milestone anniversary allows us to reflect back on a founding moment and everything that has happened since: the learning, the davening, the simchas, the comfort in times of loss, the friendships formed, the chesed.
Like Joseph, who ultimately used his gifts to save and uplift others, our minyan has used its collective strengths—its shared coat—to inspire, support, and strengthen all of us, the Beth Tzedec Congregation, and Am Yisrael.
Someone recently asked me how the Little Minyan got its name. I recounted the story of us racking our brains for a name for the service (in the days of limited search engines, and certainly no CHATGPT) …. We considered the Boardroom Minyan… the Museum Minyan…and at Rav Baruch’s suggestion, we landed on the Little Minyan. In those early days we never thought that it would be a “forever name”. We had hopes that the Minyan would outgrow its name… both in terms of numbers of attendees and perhaps also in terms of the level of sophistication (in the early days we did a lot of flying by the seats of our pants). So here we are… still the Little Minyan! We never did change the name!
Rather, we have come to appreciate the intimacy of the service. We’ve always been a little rough around the edges and spontaneous in our delivery of the service, not exactly a well-oiled machine-… and we’ve liked it that way too….
We are about to mark a holiday that celebrates the time when our people found that, with Hashem’s help, one “little” jar of oil sustained light for eight days. Today we celebrate how one “Little” Minyan, with Hashem’s help, has sustained our prayer and our community through three decades. May the light of the Little Minyan continue to shine for many years to come.
Shabbat Shalom.
Eileen Silver
23 Kislev 5786
December 13, 2025