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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 popularly abbreviated to '' parashah'' (also ''parshah'' or parsha), and is also known as a
Sidra Sidra may refer to: * Sidra (name) Places * Gulf of Sidra, a body of water in the Mediterranean Sea on the northern coast of Libya *Sidra, Libya, a Libyan port *Sidra, Sokółka County, a village in Poland * Gmina Sidra, a Polish administrative ...
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, 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, 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. 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 (6th century BCE). The origin of the first public Torah readings is found in the Book of Nehemiah, 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 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 ...
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, 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 Ashkenazic, Sephardic, 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.Though initially doubted by
Umberto Cassuto Umberto Cassuto, also known as Moshe David Cassuto (16 September 1883 – 19 December 1951), was an Italian historian, a rabbi, and a scholar of the Hebrew Bible and Ugaritic literature, in the University of Florence, then at the University ...
, this has become the established position in modern scholarship. (See the Aleppo Codex 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.


See also

* Chumash * Haftarah * Hebrew cantillation * Lectionary * Sefer Torah *
Shnayim mikra ve-echad targum ''Shnayim mikra ve-echad targum'' ( he, שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום, lit=Twice Scripture and once translation), is the Jewish practice of reading the weekly Torah portion in a prescribed manner. In addition to hearing the Torah portion r ...
*
Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Tikkun (book) A tikkun or tiqqun ( he, תיקון) is a book used by Jews to prepare for reading or writing a Torah scroll. There are two types of tikkun, a ''tikkun kor'im'' and a ''tikkun soferim''. Tikkun kor'im A ''tikkun kor'im'' or ''tiqqun qor'im'' (re ...
*
Torah reading Torah reading (; ') is a Jewish religious tradition that involves the public reading of a set of passages from a Torah scroll. The term often refers to the entire ceremony of removing the scroll (or scrolls) from the Torah ark, chanting th ...
* Weekly Maqam


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