The community calls itself the Yahad, the Unity, and the Rule treats admission as a graded process rather than a decision. A candidate is examined by the Instructor, then by the members; if accepted he spends a period apart, then a first full year in which he may not touch the pure meal of the community and his property is not merged; then a second year in which he may not touch the drink. Only after the second year and a further examination is he inscribed in his rank, and only then are his possessions and his labour merged with the common holding. The sequence assumes that purity is contagious in both directions and that a newcomer is a risk to be contained.
Property is held in common under the authority of the Instructor, the maskil, and there is a functionary charged with the community's affairs and its accounting. Rank is not honorific: it governs the order of seating, of speaking and of eating, and it is reassessed every year, so a man may be moved up or down among his brothers.
The penal code is the most concrete section and the least edifying, which is why it is so useful. Lying about property incurs a year of exclusion from the pure meal and the loss of a quarter of the food ration. Speaking out of turn, interrupting, falling asleep in session, laughing foolishly, spitting into the assembly, or letting the hand emerge from the garment so that nakedness is exposed all draw fixed penances measured in ten days, thirty days, three months. Slandering the community or rebelling after ten years of membership means permanent expulsion, and no member may afterwards eat with the expelled or accept anything from him.