It is a custom among religious Jewish communities for a weekly Torah portion to be read during

Jewish prayer Jewish prayer ( he, תְּפִלָּה, ; plural ; yi, תּפֿלה, tfile , plural ; Yinglish: davening from Yiddish 'pray') is the prayer recitation that forms part of the observance of Rabbinic Judaism. These prayers, often with i ...

services on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. The full name, ''Parashat HaShavua'' ( he, פָּרָשַׁת הַשָּׁבוּעַ), is popularly abbreviated to ''

parashah 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 ...

'' (also ''parshah'' or parsha), and is also known as a Sidra or Sedra . The ''parashah'' is a section of the Torah (Five Books of Moses) used in Jewish liturgy during a particular week. There are 54 parshas, or ''parashiyot'' in Hebrew, and the full cycle is read over the course of one Jewish year.

Content and number

Each Torah portion consists of two to six chapters to be read during the week. There are 54 weekly portions or ''parashot''. Torah reading mostly follows an annual cycle beginning and ending on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, with the divisions corresponding to the lunisolar Hebrew calendar, which contains up to 55 weeks, the exact number varying between leap years and regular years. One week is always Passover and another is always

Sukkot or ("Booths, Tabernacles") , observedby = Jews, Samaritans, a few Protestant denominations, Messianic Jews, Semitic Neopagans , type = Jewish, Samaritan , begins = 15th day of Tishrei , ends = 21st day of Tishre ...

, and the final ''parashah'', ''V'Zot HaBerachah'', is always read on Simchat Torah. Apart from the "immovable" final portion, there can be up to 53 weeks available for the other 53 portions. In years with fewer than 53 available weeks, some readings are combined to achieve the needed number of weekly readings. The annual completion of the Torah readings on Simchat Torah, translating to "Rejoicing in the Law", is marked by Jewish communities around the world.

Name

Each weekly Torah portion takes its name from the first distinctive word in the Hebrew text of the portion in question, often from the first verse.

Practice: who, when, what

The appropriate ''parashah'' is chanted publicly. In most communities, it is read by a designated reader ( ''ba'al koreh'') in Jewish prayer services, starting with a partial reading on the afternoon of

Shabbat Shabbat (, , or ; he, שַׁבָּת, Šabbāṯ, , ) or the Sabbath (), also called Shabbos (, ) by Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the week—i.e., Saturday. On this day, religious Jews remember the biblical storie ...

, the Jewish Sabbath, i.e. Saturday afternoon, again during the Monday and Thursday morning services, and ending with a full reading during the following Shabbat morning services (Saturday morning). The weekly reading is pre-empted by a special reading on major

religious holidays Religion is usually defined as a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, tran ...

. Each Saturday morning and holiday reading is followed by an often similarly themed reading ('' Haftarah'') from the Book of Prophets ('' Nevi'im'').

Origin

The custom dates to the time of the

Babylonian captivity The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile is the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon, the capital city of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, following their defeat ...

(6th century BCE). The origin of the first public Torah readings is found in the

Book of Nehemiah The Book of Nehemiah in the Hebrew Bible, largely takes the form of a first-person memoir concerning the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile by Nehemiah, a Jew who is a high official at the Persian court, and the dedic ...

, where Ezra the scribe writes about wanting to find a way to ensure the Israelites would not go astray again. This led to the creation of a weekly system to read the portions of the Torah at synagogues.

Alternative triennial cycle

In ancient times some Jewish communities practiced a triennial cycle of readings. In the 19th and 20th centuries, many congregations in the Reform and Conservative Jewish movements implemented an alternative triennial cycle in which only one-third of each weekly ''parashah'' was read in a given year; and this pattern continues. The parashot read are still consistent with the annual cycle, but the entire Torah is completed over three years. Orthodox Judaism does not follow this practice.

Differences between Israel and the diaspora

Due to different lengths of holidays in Israel and the

Diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews after ...

, the portion that is read on a particular week will sometimes not be the same inside and outside Israel.

Differences between communities

While the Parshyot divisions are fairly standardized, there are various communities with differing parsha divisions. For example, many Yemenites combine Korach with the first half of Chukat and the second half of Chukat ("Vayis'u mi-kadesh") with Balak instead of combining Matot and Masei, and some Syrian communities combine Korach and Chukat instead of Matot and Masei. In Provence and Tunisia, Mishpatim and Im Kesef Talveh were occasionally divided so that Matot and Masei would always be read together.

Base for division into portions

The division of ''parashiot'' found in the modern-day Torah scrolls of all

Ashkenazi Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...

Sephardic Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), ...

, and Yemenite communities is based upon the systematic list provided by Maimonides in '' Mishneh Torah'',
Laws of Tefillin, Mezuzah and Torah Scrolls
'

Maimonides based his division of the ''parashot'' for the Torah on the Masoretic text of the

Aleppo Codex The Aleppo Codex ( he, כֶּתֶר אֲרָם צוֹבָא, romanized: , lit. 'Crown of Aleppo') is a medieval bound manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. The codex was written in the city of Tiberias in the tenth century CE (circa 920) under the ...

.Though initially doubted by Umberto Cassuto, this has become the established position in modern scholarship. (See the

article for more information.)

Table of weekly readings

In the table, a portion that may be combined with the following portion to compensate for the changing number of weeks in the lunisolar year, is marked with an asterisk. The following chart will show the weekly readings.

References

External links

Description of each weekly Torah portion
''Aleph Beta''.
Links to the Hebrew text for weekly Torah portions
''Hebcal Jewish Calendar''.
Weekly Torah portion videos

The weekly parshah in Hebrew

The weekly parsha in many languages and by famous rabbis
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weekly Torah Portion Jewish life cycle Shacharit for Shabbat and Yom Tov