📜 Weekly Torah Portion
This Week's Torah Portion
Bereshit
29 Tishrei 5787 • October 10, 2026
In the beginning, God speaks the world into existence, light from darkness, seas from void, life from stillness. On the sixth day, humanity is formed in the divine image, entrusted with a garden of infinite possibility. But with freedom comes the first test: Adam and Eve reach for the forbidden fruit, and innocence gives way to awareness, shame, and exile. Their son Cain, consumed by jealousy, commits the first murder. Generation after generation unfolds, each carrying the weight of choice. The Torah opens not with law but with story, teaching us that creation itself is an act of love, and that the capacity to choose, even wrongly, is what makes us truly human. Every dawn echoes that first light, reminding us that the world is perpetually being created, and we are its co-authors.
Parasha schedule & data provided courtesy of Hebcal.com · Candle lighting times courtesy of Chabad.org
Parasha summaries written originally for Jewish Path
Quick answer
Parashat HaShavua is the weekly Torah portion read in synagogue every Shabbat. The Torah is divided into 54 portions, read in a fixed annual cycle that begins and ends on Simchat Torah. Each week's portion is read publicly from a Torah scroll and followed by a Haftarah reading from the Prophets.
What is the weekly Torah portion?
The weekly portion, called Parashat HaShavua in Hebrew, is a fixed section of the Five Books of Moses assigned to each Shabbat of the year. On Shabbat morning the portion is divided into seven aliyot, seven consecutive readings, and a member of the congregation is called up for each one.
Shorter passages from the coming week's portion are also read on Monday and Thursday mornings, so the text is heard three times before Shabbat arrives.
How does the annual Torah reading cycle work?
The cycle starts with Bereishit on the Shabbat after Simchat Torah and finishes a year later with the closing verses of Devarim. Because a Jewish year has between 50 and 55 Shabbatot, certain portions are joined together in shorter years and read separately in longer ones. When a festival falls on Shabbat, a festival reading replaces the regular portion, and the calendar realigns in the following weeks.
This is why the portion read in Israel can differ from the diaspora for a few weeks after Pesach: the last day of the festival falls on Shabbat in the diaspora only, and the two calendars merge again shortly afterwards.
How should a conversion candidate study the weekly portion?
Reading the portion each week is one of the most practical study habits before a Beit Din. It builds familiarity with the narrative of the Torah, the names of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, the Exodus, the giving of the Torah at Sinai, and the commandments in their original context.
A workable weekly routine: read a summary early in the week, read the Hebrew text with a translation mid-week, and note one lesson or question to bring to your rabbi. Over a full cycle you will have covered the entire Torah once.
What is the Haftarah?
After the Torah reading, a passage from the Prophets is read. It is called the Haftarah and is chosen to echo a theme, an image, or an event from the portion. On most Shabbatot the connection is thematic; on special Shabbatot before fasts and festivals the Haftarah follows its own fixed sequence.
The five books and their portions
The 54 portions are distributed across the Five Books of Moses as follows.
- Bereishit (Genesis)12 portions
- Shemot (Exodus)11 portions
- Vayikra (Leviticus)10 portions
- Bamidbar (Numbers)10 portions
- Devarim (Deuteronomy)11 portions