A ''seder'' (plural: ''sedarim'') is part of a biblical book in the

Masoretic Text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; he, נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, Nūssāḥ Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. ...

of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

In the Torah

The text of the

Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the s ...

is divided into roughly 150 ''sedarim'' though sources disagree on the exact number. Differing texts record 141, 154 or 167 ''sedarim''. The division of the Torah into ''sedarim'' is a result of the ancient custom of a

triennial cycle The Triennial cycle of Torah reading may refer to either * The historical practice in ancient Israel by which the entire Torah was read in serial fashion over a three-year period, or * The practice adopted by many Reform, Conservative, Reconstruct ...

for

Torah reading Torah reading (; ') is a Judaism, Jewish religion, religious tradition that involves the public reading of a set of passages from a Sefer Torah, Torah scroll. The term often refers to the entire ceremony of removing the scroll (or scrolls) fro ...

. The

Babylonian Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...

states that it was the custom of Jews in Israel to read the Torah in a three-year cycle.Tractate Megillah 29b

In other parts of the Bible

The books of

Nevi'im Nevi'im (; he, נְבִיאִים ''Nəvīʾīm'', Tiberian: ''Năḇīʾīm,'' "Prophets", literally "spokespersons") is the second major division of the Hebrew Bible (the ''Tanakh''), lying between the Torah (instruction) and Ketuvim (wri ...

and

Ketuvim The Ketuvim (; hbo, , Modern: ''Kəṯūvīm'', Tiberian: ''Kăṯūḇīm'' "writings") is the third and final section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), after Torah (instruction) and Nevi'im (prophets). In English translations of the Hebrew Bi ...

are also divided into ''sedarim''. Unlike the ''

parashot The term ''parashah'' ( he, פָּרָשָׁה ''Pārāšâ'', "portion", Tiberian , Sephardi , plural: ''parashot'' or ''parashiyot'', also called ''parsha'') formally means a section of a biblical book in the Masoretic Text of the Tanakh (Heb ...

'' (another subdivision of the biblical books in the Masoretic Text that is indicated by various spacing techniques), which are thematic divisions of the text, the divisions indicated by the ''sedarim'' is mostly quantitative. In Tiberian masoretic manuscripts, it is noted in the margin. In this part there are 293 sedarim, which are the numbers of weekdays during the year, some people read that 293 Sedarim in addition to the parashah and complete the whole Bible every year.

Modern use

The ''sedarim'' are seldom used in modern times. The Babylonian tradition of completing the Torah in an

annual cycle An annual cycle refers to a set of changes or events that uniformly, or consistently, take place at the same time of year. In biology, the annual cycle for plants and animals details behavioral and chemical changes that take place as the seasons ...

became the dominant tradition, and eventually the Palestinian reading cycle ceased to be used altogether. This made the ''sedarim'' liturgically obsolete. Additionally, the use of the chapter divisions of the Bible has made the ''sedarim'' unnecessary as structural divisions in the text. Today few editions of the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

mark the ''sedarim''. The

Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, abbreviated as BHS or rarely BH4, is an edition of the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible as preserved in the Leningrad Codex, and supplemented by masoretic and text-critical notes. It is the fourth edition in ...

note them in the margin, and the

Koren Tanakh Koren Publishers Jerusalem is an Israeli publisher of Jewish religious texts. It was established in 1961 by Eliyahu Koren, with the aim of publishing the first Hebrew Bible designed, edited, printed, and bound by Jews in nearly 500 years. It prod ...

ascribes to them ascending

Hebrew numerals The system of Hebrew numerals is a quasi-decimal alphabetic numeral system using the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The system was adapted from that of the Greek numerals in the late 2nd century BCE. The current numeral system is also known as t ...

Other use

In its sense as part of cyclical public reading of a biblical book, the term is also used to designate the

Weekly Torah portion It is a custom among religious Jewish communities for a weekly Torah portion to be read during Jewish prayer services on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. The full name, ''Parashat HaShavua'' ( he, פָּרָשַׁת הַשָּׁבוּעַ), is po ...

. In this sense it is often called ''sidra'' (plural ''sidrot'') from the same root.

References

Hebrew Bible Jews and Judaism in Palestine (region) Torah reading {{Hebrew-Bible-stub