The weekly Torah reading

Parasha Hub

Every reader, sheet, book, episode and tool on this site that follows the parasha, in one place. Start with this week, or find any parasha in the year below.

This week

חיי שרה Chayei Sarah Genesis 23:1–25:18 · Shabbat 7 Nov 2026

Balashon reader The parasha’s Hebrew words, traced by Balashon
Mega Bible
Shnayim Mikra
Sefaria

Genesis 23:19

Genesis 24:20

PhDs on the Parsha

PhDs on the Parsha Lieve M. Teugels, “Bible and Midrash: The Story of 'The Wooing of Rebekah' (Gen 24)”

Pictures from the Bible · Bank of Israel coins

Bible coin 2018 · “Isaac and Rebecca” (יצחק ורבקה) · Genesis 24 · inferred

Dates follow the Israel reading schedule for 5787.

Readers and series

Reader

The Uriel Simon Reader

A text and a teaching each week, in memory of Prof. Uriel Simon z"l: the verses beside his own words, on two printable pages.

Podcast

The Parasha with Rabbi Dweck

This year Rabbi Joseph Dweck is teaching the haftara: each week's prophetic reading, what it says and how it answers the parasha.

Study sheet

Parasha Sheets

Two-page sheets built from the Mega Bible: word and root counts, the words found nowhere else in Tanakh, what the parasha calls God, and Biblical → Modern Hebrew with National Library evidence.

Reader

The Balashon Shabbat Reader

Two printable pages for the Shabbat table from David Curwin's Balashon, the Hebrew Language Detective: the parasha's words, each with its verse and his account of where it comes from.

Picture book

Parasha Books

Peshat-based picture books for kids, with the pesukim on every page. Upload your own children to star in them.

Podcast

PhDs on the Parsha

One parsha, one guest who wrote a doctorate on it. The full 5787 season schedule.

Theses

The History of a Verse

McGill M.A. theses from B. Barry Levy's stream on the history of Jewish interpretation: one verse, a hundred sources, a whole thesis. Each is attached to its verse in the Mega Bible.

Coins

Pictures from the Bible

The Bank of Israel's commemorative coins on biblical scenes, one a year since 1994 — each mapped to its verse and its parasha, and attached to its verse in the Mega Bible. Verse mappings are inferred from the scenes.

The Parasha with Rabbi Dweck: the haftara

This year Rabbi Joseph Dweck is teaching the haftara, the prophetic reading that follows the parasha. Each verse he discusses is marked in the Mega Bible, with a button that plays the episode from that moment.

“Beautiful People” Haftarat Noach · Isaiah 54:1–10 (Ashkenazim to 55:5) · 35:42

God promises Israel, abandoned and widowed, that His covenant is like the oath of the waters of Noah: the mountains may crumble, His kindness will not. Rabbi Dweck turns to suffering and what comes after it, from Frankl to the Holocaust survivors who rebuilt, to Kübler-Ross: “Beautiful people don’t just happen.”

“Jews Are Blind” Haftarat Bereshit · Isaiah 42:5–43:10 · 22:53

The haftara opens with God as Creator, then calls Israel a covenant people meant to be a light to the nations, yet “blind” and “deaf.” With the Malbim, Rabbi Dweck reads the blindness as praise: only those who have tried to see know how much they cannot see, as Newton and the Rambam said of themselves.

All episodes: Spotify · Apple Podcasts

The History of a Verse: the Levy theses

At McGill, B. Barry Levy ran the M.A. stream in the History of the Jewish Interpretation of the Bible: each student took one verse or passage and traced its Jewish interpretation through some hundred primary sources, from the Bible itself to the medieval world and beyond (the stream's thesis course, JWST 691, is described as 'a study of the history of Jewish interpretation of one verse, based on 100 primary sources'). These are the verse theses of that stream that have been collected so far — each one is attached to its verse in the Mega Bible.

By parasha: Bereshit — Brodt (Genesis 3) Bereshit — Ovadis (Genesis 2:16–17) Vayeshev — Lustigman (Genesis 38) Shemot — Cahana (Exodus 1:15–21) Bo — Lobel (Exodus 12:1–2) Ki Tisa — Rand (Exodus 33:12–23) Vayakhel — Weiser (Exodus 35:3) Shelach (haftarah) — Binik (Joshua 2) Chukat (haftarah) — Abecassis (Judges 11:31–40) Ki Teitzei — Liebman (Deuteronomy 22:5)

Deborah Abecassis McGill M.A. 1993

“Jephthah's Daughter in the Jewish Exegetical Tradition”

Judges 11:31–40 Parshat Chukat (haftarah)

A judge vows to sacrifice whatever comes out of his house to greet him — and his daughter comes out dancing. Abecassis samples the Jewish responses from ancient times through the twentieth century: more than two dozen interpreters solving the text's problems, and largely declining its ethical one.

Dan Rand McGill M.A. 1997

“The Interplay of Exegesis and Ideology in the Jewish Medieval Interpretations of Exodus 33:12–23”

Exodus 33:12–23 Parshat Ki Tisa

After the golden calf, Moses pleads “show me Your glory” and is answered with a hidden face. Rand reads the medieval Jewish interpreters of the passage against each other — where their exegesis ends and their ideology begins.

Bryna Brodt McGill M.A. 2002

“The Serpent's Identity in Genesis 3: A History of Jewish Interpretation from the Bible Through the Thirteenth Century”

Genesis 3 Parshat Bereshit

The serpent appears in one chapter of the Bible and was debated ever after. Brodt sorts the Jewish readings — literal, allegorical and mythical — from the Bible through the thirteenth century.

Deborah Weiser McGill M.A. 2002

“Fire and the Sabbath: A Look at Exodus 35:3 and the Jewish Exegetical History of the Biblical Prohibition Against Using Fire on the Sabbath Day”

Exodus 35:3 Parshat Vayakhel

Why is kindling singled out from all labour? Weiser surveys לא־תבערו אשׁ from its biblical inception through the twentieth century and the advent of electricity.

Tobi Liebman McGill M.A. 2002

“The Jewish Exegetical History of Deuteronomy 22:5: Required Gender Separation or Prohibited Cross-Dressing?”

Deuteronomy 22:5 Parshat Ki Teitzei

Is Deuteronomy 22:5 about keeping the sexes separate or about cross-dressing? Liebman follows the exegetes through כלי־גבר and שׂמלת אשׁה, clause by clause.

Andrea Dawn Lobel McGill M.A. 2004

“The Green Ears of Xanthicus: Calendrical Interpretations of Exodus 12:1–2 in Jewish and Sectarian Sources from the Biblical Through Medieval Periods”

Exodus 12:1–2 Parshat Bo

החדשׁ הזה לכם — the Bible's first calendrical commandment, and the calendars built on it: Septuagint and Pseudepigrapha, Tannaim and Amoraim, Qumran, Samaritans and Karaites.

Maayan Lustigman McGill M.A. 2007

““What a Breach You Have Made for Yourself!”: The History of Jewish Interpretations of Genesis 38”

Genesis 38 Parshat Vayeshev

Judah and Tamar — the chapter that interrupts the Joseph story and seeds the Davidic line — traced as a dialogue among its interpreters, biblical to modern.

Alyssa Ovadis McGill M.A. 2010

“Abstraction and Concretization of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil As Seen Through Biblical Interpretation and Art”

Genesis 2:16–17 Parshat Bereshit

The first command in Eden names a tree but never its fruit. Ovadis follows how Jewish interpretation and art alternately abstracted the fruit of עץ הדעת טוב ורע into a symbol and concretized it into a specific fruit.

Briah Cahana McGill M.A. 2017

“The Enigmatic Meyalledot Ha'ivriyyot: A History of Interpretation of Exodus 1:15-21 from Antiquity to the Medieval Period”

Exodus 1:15–21 Parshat Shemot

Shiphrah and Puah defy Pharaoh and are rewarded with “houses” — but who were they? Cahana traces the midwives' identities through a large sample of Jewish and Christian interpretation, from the fourth century BCE to the fourteenth century CE.

Irving M. Binik McGill M.A. 2018

“Rahab the Prostitute: A History of Interpretation from Antiquity to the Medieval Period”

Joshua 2 Parshat Shelach (haftarah)

Rahab of Jericho — innkeeper or harlot, convert or ancestress of prophets — from antiquity to the medieval period. Joshua 2 is read each year as the haftarah of Shelach.

Pictures from the Bible: the Bank of Israel coins

Since 1994 the Bank of Israel has issued one commemorative coin a year on a biblical scene — the תמונות מן התנ״ך (Pictures from the Bible) series, each in 1, 2 and 10 NIS silver and a 1 NIS gold piece. The Bank's catalog names each scene but prints no chapter and verse: every verse and parsha mapping here is inferred from the depicted scene, and is labelled as such. There was no Bible coin in 1997, 2001 or 2015, and no 2026 issue has been listed.

By parasha: Bereshit — 2017 (Genesis 1–3) Noach — 1998 (Genesis 6:13–8:14) Noach — 2002 (Genesis 11:1–9) Lech Lecha — 1999 (Genesis 15:5) Vayera — 1994 (Genesis 22:1–19) Vayera — 2006 (Genesis 18:1–8) Chayei Sarah — 2018 (Genesis 24) Miketz — 1995 (1 Kings 3:16–28) Miketz — 2000 (Genesis 42:6) Shemot — 2004 (Exodus 3:1–6) Beshalach — 1996 (Exodus 15:20–21) Beshalach — 2008 (Exodus 14:21–29) Beshalach — 2023 (Judges 4–5) Ki Tisa — 2005 (Exodus 31:18–34:29) Vayetze — 2003 (Genesis 29) Vayetze — 2014 (Genesis 28:10–19) Sh'lach — 2019 (Numbers 13:23)

Adam and Eve BOI 2017

אדם וחוה

Genesis 1–3 Parshat Bereshit

The first couple in Eden, the tree at the centre of the garden.