What is a Torah Portion?
A Torah Portion is a section of the first five books of scripture, known as the Torah. The Torah is the spoken and written Instructional Wisdom of Our Creator. Our Father and Creator spoke the Torah as a covenant, between Him and His people, the Kingdom. This covenant originated in the book of Genesis, and is communicated to Moses from Exodus throughout Deuteronomy, thus encompassing the first five books of the bible. Moses wrote down and orally taught the contents of the Torah to the Kingdom when it was established in the ancient world.
The first five books of the bible are the foundation of all of scripture, and each represent unique individual sections of Torah, that unite as a greater whole. Each book, however, is organically broken down in sections of its own. In our modern-day studies of the bible we use the “chapter-verse” format to move through the sections of Torah. This was not the way the ancient Kingdom of The Most High would have navigated the Torah.
Consequently, Moses is the key. Moses was taught the entirety of the Torah and charged to administer it to the Kingdom. The way Father told him to write it is the way he had to. So, there are natural word groupings and breaks in the Torah that have been preserved through Hebrew hand copied “Kosher” Torah Scrolls. It is said to be a total of 669 parshiyot, or groupings of words, in the five books of the Torah.
History of the Weekly Readings
It is not certain how Father through Moses, wanted the Torah to be taught, however we must realize that He had an organized method, for His Kingdom to learn how to maintain a loyal relationship with Him. In Deuteronomy 31:10–13, Moses gave the instruction that the Torah should be read every 7 years during the appointed feast time of Sukkot, aka Tabernacles. In Acts 15:21, it states that “Moses” was read in the synagogues every Shabbat. Moses in this verse is referring to the Torah since, once again Father communicated it to him. This shows that the Torah was to be read in an orderly pattern of sevens.
Fast forward to the modern-day structure of the weekly Torah readings and we find that it is attributed to Ezra. In Nehemiah chapter 8, Ezra, a scribe and priest of the Kingdom, read the Torah to the people during the appointed time of the feast of Trumpets. This is in the seventh Hebrew month, just like the feast of Tabernacles is. Yet again, pointing to a pattern linked to the number seven.
Ultimately two traditions arose on how the readings were to be done. #1, was to split the readings into155 portions and complete them in three years. #2, split the readings into 54 portions completed in one year. The one-year cycle is what’s more common today, however there are those who prefer the three-year cycle of readings instead.
Torah Treasures!
Studying the Torah is of the utmost of importance as WE aim to live a Kingdom life in today’s world! Through our studies of the Torah portions, we’ve grown closer to Our Father and gained amazing insights into His Word. An example of this is that each Torah portion is a type of incipit, which means, it gets its name from a word in one of the beginning verses of the portion!
So, we want to share more of these awesome treasures we’ve uncovered, in what we call Torah Nuggets! Each week we’ll take one interesting point we find from our Torah studies and share it here.