What is noteworthy about this episode of “Northern Exposure” is that it highlights one of the problems American Jews

Depictions of American Jews on television are often a barometer for the way in which Jewish writers, and presumably Jewish viewers, understand their Jewish identity. The 1990s series “Northern Exposure” featured the character of Joel Fleischman, a young Jewish doctor from New York who moved to rural Alaska to practice medicine as the town’s only physician. In one episode, when Joel receives word that his uncle Manny has died, he seeks a minyan with whom to say Kaddish. (Never mind that one is not obligated to say Kaddish for an uncle.)

Joel initially explains, “You need nine guys on a field to play baseball and 10 Jews in a room to say Kaddish.” So, the entire town of non-Jewish residents embarks on a mission to find nine other Jews to enable Joel to say Kaddish for his uncle. A successful businessman offers to fly them in and provide a stipend; the local innkeepers agree to provide accommodations; and the radio station launches a PR campaign. One by one, the residents of Cicily, Alaska track down random Jews from across the state. But just when it seems likely that Joel will have his minyan, he reasons that a minyan of Jews is meaningless. His community — his minyan — should be made up of his friends and neighbors, rather than fellow Jews with whom he has no relationship. The award-winning episode depicts the ways in which this American Jew’s ties to humanity as a whole supersede any meaningful connection to his particular people, even for the performance of a distinctive ritual act.

What is noteworthy about this episode of “Northern Exposure” is that it highlights one of the problems American Jews have with the concept of the minyan — namely, its particularity. The hard distinction between Jew and non-Jew is considered problematic in a multicultural, pluralistic society. There’s something additional that bothers contemporary American Jews with regard to a minyan. I have a feeling that if that episode of “Northern Exposure” were being written today, Joel Fleischman probably would decide that it is fine for him to recite Kaddish alone, by himself. The minyan, the required quorum of 10 adult Jews needed for public prayer and Torah reading, has been a core component of Jewish life throughout the millennia. Even the earliest sources about the minyan in Mishnah (Sanhedrin 1:6 and Megillah 4:3) assume its prior existence, offering a set of supporting verses from the Torah to lend greater credibility to an already existing rule, and clarifying which prayers require it.

The minyan represents a microcosm of the entirety of the Jewish people, and its requirement for the recitation of key prayers underscores how the Jewish people’s primary spiritual experiences are not solitary ones, but rather public and communal. Traditionally, a minyan comprised only men. The first official move to include women in a minyan came at the Frankfurt (Reform) Rabbinical Conference of 1845, when Rabbi Samuel Adler brought the issue before the rabbis in a resolution that boldly declared that the woman “has the same obligation as man to participate from youth up in the instruction in Judaism and in the public services, and that the custom not to include women in the number of individuals necessary for the conducting of a public service is only custom, and has no religious basis.”