The division of the text of the Torah into weekly sections intended for public reading as the "Portion of the Week," was known already in the Second Temple period (5th cent. b.c.e. - 70 c.e.).  In the land of Israel at that time it was customary to divide the text into 152 sections, suited to a 3-year cycle. 

In Babylonia, by contrast, it was customary to read the entire Pentateuch in a single year, and so the Torah was divided into 54 sections, reading "Parshat Bereishit," the first section of the Book of Genesis, in the week following the Sukkot festival, and concluding a year later during Simchat Torah (which in Israel is also Shemini Atzeret), with the reading of Parshat "Zot HaBerachot," the last section of the Book of Deuteronomy.  Immediately upon completion of the final reading, the cycle is begun again, as if to admit that one is never finished learning its lessons.  The Babylonian custom was accepted by the entire Jewish Diaspora in the period of the Geonim (7th-11th cent. c.e.), and it has continued up to the present times. 

The names of the weekly portions are taken from the beginning of each parasha, from its first Hebrew word or the most important word in the first verse, such as "Bereishit" ("In the Beginning"), "Noach," "Lekh Lekha" ("Go Forth"), and so on.  Every week is named for the parasha that is read during its seven days.  Signifcantly, the word "shabbat" itself also means "week" (cf. Lev. 23:16; Mishna Nedarim 8:1). 

The Weekly Portion is itself divided into seven sections, called "aliyot" ("ascensions," i.e., to bless the Torah before it is read), and named appropriately, "First," "Second," "Third," and so on.  During the afternoon service on Shabbat, the first aliyah of the Weekly Portion for the coming week is read.  This section is also read on Monday and Thursday of that week, for in ancient times, these were market days, when the rural population would come into the commercial city centers, making them suitable days for public readings. 

All seven aliyot of that week's parasha are read on Shabbat morning, each section being blessed beforehand by a congregant honored with an "aliyah to the Torah."  The division also serves to distribute the weekly study of the parasha throughout the week, so that ideally one studies one aliyah each day of the week. 

At the end of the Shabbat morning reading, a few verses from the end of the seventh aliyah are repeated for an added "Maftir" ("Adjourning"), which introduces the reading of the "Haftarah" ("Dismissal," i.e., of the congregants after the reading of the Torah), taken from the Prophetic sections of the Bible.  Generally, there is a thematic connection between the Torah portion and the Prophetic reading for that week.  The practice derives from the times when the public reading of the Torah was forbidden by the ruling non-Jewish authorities, in response to which the Jewish community instituted alternative readings from the Prophets that were intended to recall the Torah portion that would have been read that week.  When the forbidding decree passed, the community retained the practice, perhaps as a weekly reminder of larger parameters. 

Thus the reading of the Torah by means of the Weekly Portion has accompanied the Jewish people throughout each year, throughout the ages, wherever they have wandered, a kind of spiritual and national "provision for the road," and throughout all the years of their wanderings never did three days pass without again "drinking water" from the Torah (cf. Ex.15:22-26).  The Portion of the Week reminded the Jews of their identity as a people chosen by God, a people whose very existence testified to the presence of God in the world and to the existence of God's intention that "all the families of the earth should be blessed" and redeemed through Abraham's descendents (Gen.12:3). 

By reason of this accompaniment, it is plausible to see in the reading of Parashat HaShavua a decisive influence in the national history of the Jewish people, a practice that shaped the character of the nation and the self-understanding of the individual.  The weekly reading of Parshat HaShavua led the individual Jew to see the events of his or her own life as a reflection of the archetypal events of the people as a whole, in the context of the covenant between God and Jewish people.  The Jew "lived" the Portion of the Week, which gave expression to the cycle of his or her life. 

By means of Parshat HaShavua, the story of the Jewish people as a whole becomes the personal story of every individual Jew. 

2. What part of the parasha (the biblical text) does the "D'var Torah" you read interpret? 

3. What does this parasha and its interpretation contribute to your understanding of Jewish identity? 

4. Is the Portion related to Shabbat in any way?  How?

5. What do you like or dislike about the Parshat HaShavua that you studied?