Chumash (Judaism)

''Chumash'' (also Ḥumash; he, חומש, or or Yiddish: ; plural Ḥumashim) is a Torah in printed and book bound form (i.e. codex) as opposed to a Sefer Torah, which is a scroll.

The word comes from the Hebrew word for five, (). A more formal term is , "five fifths of Torah". It is also known by the Latinised Greek term Pentateuch in common printed editions.

Etymology

The word is a standard Ashkenazic vowel shift of , meaning "one-fifth", alluding to any one of the five books; by synecdoche, it came to mean the five fifths of the Torah. The Modern Hebrew and Sephardic pronunciation is an erroneous reconstruction based on the assumption that the Ashkenazic accent, which is almost uniformly penultimately stressed, had also changed the stress of the word. In fact, preserves the original stress pattern and both pronunciations contain a shifted first vowel.

In early scribal practice, there was a distinction between a Sefer Torah, containing the entire Pentateuch on a parchment scroll, and a copy of one of the five books on its own, which was generally bound in codex form, like a modern book, and had a lesser degree of sanctity. The term strictly applies to one of the latter. Thus, strictly means "the Genesis fifth", but was misread as and interpreted as meaning "The Pentateuch: Genesis", as if was the name of the book and the name of one of its parts. Compare the misunderstanding of " Tur" to mean the entirety of the Arba'ah Turim.

In the legal codes, such as Maimonides' ''Mishneh Torah,'' it is laid down that any copy of the Pentateuch which does not comply with the strict rules for a Sefer Torah, for example, because it is not a parchment scroll or contains vowel signs, has only the same sanctity as a copy of an individual book (). In this way, the word (or ) came to have the extended sense of any copy of the Pentateuch other than a Sefer Torah.

Usage

The word ''ḥumash'' generally only refers to "book" bound editions of the Pentateuch, whereas the "scroll" form is called a ''sefer Torah'' ("book f theTorah").

In modern Jewish practice:
* A printed ''ḥumash'' usually sets out the Hebrew text of the Torah with ''niqqud'' (vowel marks) and cantillation marks, separated into its 54 constituent weekly Torah portions (''parashiyyot''), together with the ''haftarah'' for each portion and, often, translations and notes.
* A ''ḥumash-Rashi'' also contains the Targum Onkelos and the commentary of Rashi, and may or may not have a vernacular translation of the text.
* A '' Tikkun soferim'' or ''Tiqqun Qore'im'' sets out, in parallel columns, the unvocalized text of the Pentateuch as it would appear in a Torah scroll and the normal printed text as it appears in a Chumash; it sometimes includes ''haftarot'' and the Five Megillot. It exists as an aid for ''soferim'' (Torah scribes) and for those preparing to read from the sefer Torah in the synagogue.
* A multi-volume set in Hebrew only, often but not always including the entire Tanakh

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