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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.
In addition to hearing the Torah portion read in the synagogue, a person should read it himself twice during that week, together with a translation usually by Targum Onkelos and/or Rashi's commentary. [1] [2] In addition, while not required by law, there exists an Ashkenazi custom to also read the portion from the Prophets with its targum. [3]
The work is based on the rules of study laid down in the Peri Etz Chaim of Hayyim ben Joseph Vital, in the Sha'ar Hanhagat Limmud (chapter on study habits). In this he recommends that, in addition to studying the Torah portion for the forthcoming Shabbat each week, one should study daily excerpts from the other works mentioned, and lays down a formula for the number of verses or the topic to ...
The practice was to read each parashah in serial order regardless of the week of the year, completing the entire Torah in three years in a linear fashion. By the Middle Ages , the annual reading cycle was predominant, although the triennial cycle was still extant at the time, as noted by Jewish figures of the period, such as Benjamin of Tudela ...
The Golden Calf. God instructed Moses that when he took a census of the Israelites, each person 20 years old or older should pay a half-shekel ransom, to avoid a plague. God told Moses to assign the proceeds to the service of the Tent of Meeting.
Moses Speaks to the Children of Israel (illustration from Hartwell James's The Boys of the Bible). Vayelech, Vayeilech, VaYelech, Va-yelech, Vayelekh, Wayyelekh, Wayyelakh, or Va-yelekh (וַיֵּלֶךְ —Hebrew for "then he went out", the first word in the parashah) is the 52nd weekly Torah portion (פָּרָשָׁה , parashah) in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and the ...
A d'var Torah (Hebrew: דבר תורה, "word of Torah"; plural: divrei Torah), also known as a drasha or drash in Ashkenazic communities, is a talk on topics generally relating to a parashah (section) of the Torah – typically the weekly Torah portion. A typical d'var Torah imparts a life lesson, backed up by passages from texts such as the ...
An alternative triennial cycle of Torah readings also existed at that time, a system whereby each week the portion read was approximately a third of the current. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia , the triennial cycle "was the practice in Palestine, whereas in Babylonia the entire Pentateuch was read in the synagogue in the course of a ...