Weekly Torah Portions In The Torah Portion Calendar

Weekly Torah Portions In The Torah Portion Calendar

A division of Torah portions that is done in weekly readings is known as weekly Torah portions. These readings have made a place for their own in the Torah portion calendar. The readings consist of recitations of chapters from the Old Testament, or the Hebrew Bible. These readings are very popular at Jewish services. They include a lot of appreciation for the God.

Traditionally, Torah is read to the public all through the year. Tradition also mandates a weekly reading which focuses on one particular part of the Torah. This service is called the weekly Torah portion or weekly reading. This is done on the seventh day of the Jewish week. The seventh day of the Jewish week falls on Saturday in the Roman calendar we use at this time.For those who know Hebrew, these weekly portions have a unique name, para-shat haShavuah. These weekly portions play an important role in the study of sacred Jewish texts. A few of these weekly portions are titled “words from the Torah.” These words are selected by a group of experienced Rabbis. The rabbis choose them because they think it's important for the mass to hear these words.

In the Torah portion calendar the weekly words are chosen from the five sacred books of the Torah. These portions represent the strongest of the strong words the god wants the Jewish people to hear.Each weekly Torah portion takes its name from some of the unique words found in the ancient Hebrew texts. Some of these portions refer to the events that date back to the sixth century, when Babylonia was captured. 

In total there are 54 different weekly portions of the Torah. These portions are recited in accordance with the old Luni-solar calendar of the Jews. A Luni-solar calendar counts the position of both the sun and the moon to keep time. The cycle of weekly portions of the Torah ends in a festival known as the Smichat Torah.The Jewish calendar is unlike the modern calendar we use today. There are years in the Jewish calendar that contain as many as 55 weeks. Therefore in some years there are two Smichat Torah festivals.

Weekly Torah portions are not only helpful to people who come to read them. These have a sanctified effect on the listeners as well. They also instill in them God's approach of life and how each are anticipated to accomplish these ways in their individual lives.

Get To Know About Torah Portion Online

What is the Torah?

The Books of Moses is also known as Law and it is the biblical term for the first five books of the Bible- Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In Hebrew Language, the first five books are collectively known as the Torah. The meaning of this word is “instruction”. God has given the Torah to instruct his people in holiness. The Torah has the record of creation, the story of the fall of man, the plight of humanity, the call of Abraham, the exodus from Egypt, the wanderings in the wilderness, the agreement with Israel and all the rules and laws from the God.  During the ancient time, a system was created for the synagogue to ensure that people get to hear Torah Portion every week.

Even in the modern time, the Jewish people study a Torah portion every Sabbath in the Synagogue. It may not be possible for the people to assemble and hear the Torah Portion every Sabbath but that does not prevent them from getting the teachings or listening them as per their convenience as there are websites offering Torah Portion Online.  Some of the websites offer Torah Readings in English as well as Hebrew for the convenience of the readers ensuring they get to mingle with their ancient days religious practice.  

Why Online Torah Portions?

Online Torah Portion  helps in encouraging the Christians to become familiar with the five books of Moses. There is reading and hearing of the weekly portions from Torah. Torah Portion Online has opened up a new avenue for the Messianic Christians. Now at their convenient time and pace, they can get to know about their roots, culture and religion in details. Such online teachings or courses are designed to teach the Jewish Christians about their roots, scriptures and traditions and all the courses are designed in a very well structured manner so that the students could get deep knowledge about the religion and the practices.

How the Torah Portions Online designed

The Torah Portions online are given week wise under the heading This weeks Torah Portion. In case one has missed the Torah Portion of a particular week, one can look into the archive and go through it. This is not possible in the physical class trainings. The easy to use website, well structured course materials and lecture DVD & VCD help the students of the online Messianic Jewish Course to acquire detailed knowledge in various aspects of Jewish Christianity.   

Importance of Weekly Torah Portion

A weekly Torah portion happens to be a division of the main text of the Torah itself that is carried out during weekly reading. There are a wide variety of reasons which make these weekly readings extremely special. The most important reason among them happens to be the better appreciation of the Hebrew Bible, which is read in the majority of Jewish services quite faithfully for the purpose of appreciating both God and His works.

How is the Message of the Torah spread to the People?

The public gets a taste of the knowledge of the Torah through these readings which are completed over the duration of a year. But, one essential portion is read over the course of a week, and this week’s Torah portion reading of the sacred text normally takes place at the time of the morning service on the seventh day that is present in a Jewish week, commonly referred to as the Sabbath. Sabbath has been changed to Sabbath in English, which stands for Saturday as per the Jewish calendar.

Torah portions which are read on a weekly basis happen to be known as Parashat Shavuot. They are considered to be the prime points for traditional Jewish learning. This form of learning has no fixed format. It can range from individual study to the sermons delivered by a rabbi, to group discussions and sessions where formal speech is delivered. This week’s Torah portion is deemed as being the “words from Torah”. These particular words must be heard by the masses in order to know God well.

Why are the Weekly Torah Portions significant?

These sessions are really special since they take place just once a week and are derived directly from various books mentioned in the Torah. The sessions help to deliver a particular message that is present in each of the five books of the Torah for the public to hear and understand. The word of God is expressed in quite a strong manner and must be learned by heart along with the sharing of every single special reading session as per the Torah portion calendar.

Different listings can be found for each one of these portions in every individual book of the Torah. The process of naming the weekly Torah portions is unique – each portion gains its name from one of the many exclusive words given in the Hebrew sacred text.

Development of the Sessions

The practice of the conventional weekly reading session of the Torah portion dates back as far as the time of the Babylonian Captivity of the 6th century. Public reading sessions of the Torah used to follow the yearly cycle in the Torah portion calendar and this particular cycle would generally come to an end on the holiday known as Sim chat Torah.

The text of the Torah happened to be segregated into 54 diverse weekly portions that would follow the unipolar pattern of the Hebrew calendar. A single year of the Jewish calendar is likely to contain up to fifty-five weeks based on the occurrence of leap and regular years.

The weekly Torah portions play a major role in uplifting the people to whom they are read. They also seek to instill the way of life stated by God.