What Is A Weekly Torah Portion?

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A weekly Torah portion is a division of the Torah itself that is done in weekly readings. These weekly readings are indeed very special for their own reasons. One of the most important of those reasons is getting to know the Hebrew Bible that is read in a lot of Jewish services very faithfully and with lots of appreciation for God.

The Torah is shared with the public through readings that are done over the course of a year. However, one major portion is read weekly, and this weekly reading usually takes place at the morning service on the seventh day that is in a Jewish week; what is referred to often as the Shabbat. In English, Shabbat is Sabbath, which is Saturday on the Jewish calendar.

Weekly Torah portions are also called parashat haShavuah, and they serve as a focal point for Jewish learning. Learning can be anything from individual study to a rabbi’s sermons, to group discussion study that is formal in delivery. These portions are known as being the “words from Torah” and are the words that people need to hear most to know God very well.

These very special once-a-week portions are taken directly ...
... from different books of the Torah, and deliver the specific message that is given in each of the Torah’s five books for many to hear and know. God’s word is something that is expressed very strongly and should be learned well with each special reading shared.

There are different listings for these portions for each book of the Torah. Each of the weekly Torah portions get their names from one of the many unique words that are in the Hebrew text.

The traditional reading of the weekly Torah portion is something that dates back as far as the Babylonian Captivity from the sixth century. Torah readings that were public followed a cycle of a year and this cycle would usually end on the holiday called Simchat Torah.

The Torah was divided up into 54 different weekly portions that would go along with the lunisolar Hebrew calendar. A year on the Jewish calendar can contain up to fifty-five weeks depending on regular and leap years.

The weekly Torah portion is something that not only uplifts those to whom they are read. They also instill in them God’s way of life and how each are expected to carry out these ways in their own lives.

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