Torah is life.
Her every path is shalom.
Vaetchanan
- Haftarah
- Isaiah 40:1-26
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What is the Torah portion?
A Torah portion — parashah in Hebrew, often shortened to parsha — is the week's reading from the five books of Moses. The Torah is divided into fifty-four portions so that, Shabbat by Shabbat, a community reads through the whole of it across a single year.
The rhythm is old. Israel was told to gather and hear the Torah read aloud — men, women, children, and the stranger alike (Deuteronomy 31:10–13) — so the words would be learned, carried, and lived. The cycle begins again each autumn at Simchat Torah, “the joy of the Torah,” the moment the scroll is rolled back to the beginning.
Each portion takes its name from its opening words. The first, B'reisheet — “in the beginning” — opens Genesis. Paired with every portion is a haftarah, a passage from the Prophets chosen to echo its themes, so that the voice of Moses and the voice of the prophets are heard together.