Talk:Parashah

Plural form of the word
Parashah the proper vocalization, not the colloquial parsha. I very much understand if someone wants to note or even use parsha for the Weekly Torah portion, because that is an extremely widespread usage. But for the technical halakhic meaning it is not widespread, and the proper transliteration should be used in the article.

The plural is either parashot or parashiyyot (never parshiyyot), and it was correctly noted that Maimonides uses the latter (it appears that way even in the manuscripts of Mishneh Torah). But there is a whole area of halakhic literature on this, which employs both forms, but parashot probably more often. In modern Hebrew the same is true.

This is an "article in progress" which I still plan to add huge amounts to in the coming months. (Does the English Wikipedia have an "aticle in progress" template?") So I respectfully request that spelling changes be discussed here at the talk page. The true danger to the quality of the article is not which form we choose, but that unilateral changes will lead to inconsistency within it.Dovi 17:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The Hebrew version of the article has parshiyot not parashot. You haven't provided a reference for parashot, so why change the version which has a proper source. Please do not revert sourced edits wihout producing evidence.--Redaktor 17:28, 2 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually, the Hebrew article mostly uses parashot. (Where were you looking? Both are used in modern Hebrew.) Regardless, a Wikipedia article is not a source. If you want serious sources, the articles by Penkower and Ofer use both, and cite halakhic sources that use both. Rabbi Breuer in the introductions to his Tanakh versions (see the list in the Aleppo Codex article) prefers parashot, and in general it is used slightly more in halakhic contexts and in modern Hebrew writing. The whole issue, however, is a totally trivial one, and the main thing is for us to be consistent.Dovi 19:48, 2 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Please do not revert spellings without agreement on a consistent method. Dovi 06:17, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
 * That's odd. I edited the spelling to parshiyot and quoted a source. You have reverted my edits without agreement.--Redaktor 10:25, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Please address the points already made above (which you seem not to have read), and then maybe we can have a meaningful discussion. Here is a list:
 * Both parashot and parashiyyot are used in halakhic literature.
 * Both parashot and parashiyyot are used in modern Hebrew.
 * Parshiyot (the edit you have made several times) is incorrect and should not be used at all. (As a Yiddishism, parshiyos can be noted in a footnote.)
 * In both types of literature (halakhic and modern), parashot is used more often.
 * Sources for the above:
 * Even-Shoshan dictionary: Plural of "parashah" = parashot and also parashiyyot. ES lists the less common form last.
 * The articles noted in the "literature cited" section of this article, as well as articles by Mordechai Breuer and all of his introductions to his editions of the Tanakh. Online you might also be able to find usages of the plural in the websites on the Aleppo Codex and the "Jerusalem Crown" Tanakh. Hebrew usages are obviously preferable, in rabbinic and academic writing.
 * The Hebrew version of this article uses the plural parashot (once again the majority usage in modern Hebrew).

I hope this closes the issue once and for all. I find it disheartening that so much effort is being wasted on something so trivial, when it has been evident since the start that we really need here is a something constant and usable. Shabbat Shalom, Dovi 14:29, 11 May 2007 (UTC)


 * If you think it is trivial, why make an issue of it?


 * 1) You say parshiyot is incorrect, but Google has more than 11000 hits for it.
 * 2) Even-Shoshan is Hebrew, and not a source for how the word should be rendered in the English Wikipedia.
 * 3) The usage in Modern Hebrew is totlly irrelevant to an article which predates Modern Hebrew by many centuries.
 * 4) Please supply a direct quote from Breuer to support your contention.


 * --Redaktor 08:12, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

The choice between parashot and parashiyyot is trivial because both are correct forms. (The former, however, is much simpler for a word that will probably appear hundreds of times when this article is finished.) Your constant changes to parshiyot are a bit less trivial, because they are wrong. And your lack of constancy (change a few and leave the rest without any agreement) is even less trivial. English Google hits are meaningless for determining Hebrew vowelization, try Hebrew Google. Only after the proper Hebrew vowelization is established can you talk about transliteration/spelling in English. As I said, I have no problem noting the Yiddishism (parshiyos) in a footnote, but this article is not about the Yiddishism.

I didn't bring up the Hebrew Wikipedia article, you did and then I answered you, so please refrain from telling me that it is irrelevant.

Modern Hebrew is not irrelevant, especially when the modern Hebrew usage is identical to the forms in classical Hebrew for this case, as I already pointed out several times: Parashot is the more common plural in both Modern and classical rabbinic Hebrew.

Tanakh Horev, 1998, "On the Edition" (Al ha-Mahdurah) by Rabbi Mordechai Breuer uses Parashot consistently dozens of times throughout, including the headings of subsections (נוסח נביאים וכתובים: הפרשות), (הפרשות הפתוחות והסתומות הועתקו מכתר ארם צובה). Same for everything else I've seen published by Rav Breuer and by most people who write on the topic. Give it a rest, enough is enough. If you do insist on continuuing this discussion, then you will probably force a vote, but please stop making unilateral changes regardless. Dovi 17:17, 13 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I disagree with you. Modern Hebrew usage is most certainly irrelevant to this article. And I do not accept your contention that parashot is common in rabbinical sources. Furthermore English usage must be taken into account for an article in the English Wikipedia; you cannot dismiss it.


 * I don't know what you mean by unilateral. you are the only person who disagrees with me, and I don't see why you should force your opinion on me.--Redaktor 11:54, 14 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Disagree completely about English usage. WP is an encyclopedia, and as such there is a place for it to note a popular vocalization that is technically incorrect, but not to base an entire article on it. For that, yes, popular English usage can and should be dismissed. Unilateral means that the article was written one correct way (no one disputes this), and while you contribute nothing of value to the actual content of the article, you make inconsistent changes to the spelling of a single term in a few of the places it appears, and without agreement.Dovi 14:10, 14 May 2007 (UTC)


 * You say it is correct, but I disagree with you. The fact that you wrote the article does not give you ownership.--Redaktor 13:54, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Even-Shoshan, a reputable dictionary respected by scholars, says that it is a correct usage. (The grammatical model is obviously parashah >> parashot as in halakhah >> halakhot.) You didn't question this earlier, just its relevance (!), but now you actually "disagree" that it is "correct"? Nobody owns the article, but there is certainly more weight to someone making serious contributions than to someone who has done nothing more than make several arbitrary spelling changes with no rhyme or reason (i.e. change spellings in a few places but not others and leave the article haphazard). The haphazard aspect of it (not the legitimate spelling discussion) is close to vandalism.


 * This debate has been pointless for a while and I don't plan to continue it. So if you still insist on changing the spellings we will simply have to open a vote. With a vote, whatever the result is, at least there won't be any more haphazard changes. Dovi 14:21, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Adding External Links Section
I want to add an External Links section with external links to this article Parsha Classes: http://www.yutorah.org/parshat_hashavua.cfm http://www.613.org/parasha.html http://www.torahsearch.com/page.cfm/50 http://www.torahforme.com/files/Parsha/

Shadchan 15:03, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Adding Link
No response all week so I am adding a section with external links. Shadchan 17:41, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 13:44, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Parashat Bemidbar/Bamidbar
I'm curious about the choice of spelling "Parashat Bemidbar" instead of "Parashat Bamidbar". This issue applies to other articles, too, of course, and I've started a discussion at Talk:Torah in hopes of reaching consensus for consistent spelling of the name of the parasha and the name of the Torah book. --Rich Janis (talk) 10:13, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Parashot between books
What's about parashot between books, for example between Genesis and Exodus?

In these are missing.

Should I add parashot between books in the Tanakh-study software I write?

I need detailed info about parashot between every pair of two nearby books. VictorPorton (talk) 23:25, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi, that's a good question. The beginning of a book is not considered a new parashah (open or closed). It simply starts at the beginning of the page or the appropriate line.


 * However, there are rules or scribal customs about about spaces between books (even though they are not called parashot). Some of them are discussed in this article, such as the number of spaces between each of the 12 minor prophets, or between each of the 5 books of Psalms. In Torah scrolls, four blank lines are left between books, like in the picture here.


 * If you are writing Tanakh software, I invite you to use the text I am currently developing here. Dovi (talk) 16:10, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Difference in meaning of "open" and "closed" parashah?
The article discusses in detail the differnt ways of marking "open" and "closed" parashah, but never says what their difference in significance is supposed to be. Like, e.g. one marking "big" breaks in meaning and the other "small", or something like that. Or is there no significance at all? -- 77.189.94.179 (talk) 18:51, 18 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The issue you raise in an interesting one. On a subjective level, one often gets the impression that major topical shifts in the text are more likely to be marked by an "open" parashah, while minor shifts in topic or style are more likely to be marked by a "closed" one. However, this impression is very hard to verify, especially because there are so many exceptions. Since I have never found any scholarship that addresses this question, it is hard to put impressions like that into the article without any verifiable source. In general, the exegetical value of the parashot is an unexplored issue; maybe someday someone will write an article or a dissertation on it... Dovi (talk) 19:44, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

doesn't meet the purpose
"^ Data on the manuscript evidence for parashot beginning with the Dead Sea Scrolls is collated in the Hebrew University Bible Project." there's no way anybody can check out the actual text, which is what references are all about. If this project is online, give a link to it. If it's a series of hardcopy publications, give the publisher, volume number, etc. 4.248.223.159 (talk) 17:37, 13 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi, the article on the Hebrew University Bible Project has such information, and a link is provided in the footnote that you cite. Dovi (talk) 12:59, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Addition to the lead paragraph
The following was added by User:Maryester to the lead paragraph of this article as "giving an early source" for the topic:


 * The root reasoning for these separations predate the final Mesorah in use today, back to the Iraqi Rabbis who wrote the Babylonian Talmud, Babba Kama p. 82A states that "3 days shall not go by without [a Jew] hearing the public Torah reading" in Hebrew from the Sofer written parchment scroll in the presence of a minyan which is Jewish law. A Parsha is the separation to fulfill Parshat HaShavua and daily Parsha reading schedules, and its coresponding mitzvah.

I removed this, asking Maryester  to explain why it is relevant on the talk page. The same editor then added it back it, explaining in the edit summary that "the reason given for the existence of parshot belongs in the lead given in the earliest possible source (bavly)"

This is not correct. The source cited from the Babylonian Talmud ("Bavly") is not the earliest source for this topic (there are much earlier ones), nor is it a relevant source at all: This article is not about the days when the Torah is read, nor is a parashah "the separation to fulfill Parshat HaShavua and daily Parsha reading schedules, and its coresponding mitzvah". Nor is the lead paragraph generally the place for citing sources on a topic.

If there is justification for keeping this addition, please explain it here on the talk page. Dovi (talk) 12:44, 18 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I've removed the text. If there are any further issues regarding this, please discuss them here first before changing the lead of the article. Dovi (talk) 05:19, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Discussion about the 54 Torah parshas

 * REQUEST: Please see the centralized discussion about this subject, relating to sources, links, content, etc at Talk:Chayei Sarah (parsha). Thank you, IZAK (talk) 09:44, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Separate article for Poetic layout
I've come to the conclusion that this article should deal with parashot alone, and the material on poetic layout (the last part) should be moved to a separate article, even as an initial stub. That article would discuss both the special layout of songs in the 21 books and the layout in Sifrei Emet. Both articles (which deal with different but related issues of masoretic formatting) would of course refer to each other.

I'm finding it difficult, however, to think of an appropriate title: Poetic layout in the Masoretic Bible? Can someone come up with something better and preferably shorter? Dovi (talk) 16:41, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I see no reason to seperate the two. To the layman, the two appear similar: Scribal traditions regarding spaces within written Biblical text. The difference between the two can and should be elaborated on in the article, but is insufficient as a reason to split the article IMHO. Mo'adim L'Simcha, Nahum (talk) 21:48, 19 September 2013 (UTC)


 * OK, so we'll leave it, though it's a bit long. I hope someone will fill it in at some point so that the rank for this article can go up. Dovi (talk) 17:45, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Stop wikilinking Bible chapters to parashah discussions! This is serious misappropriation.
There is no justification for Bible chapters, which are also part of the Christian Bible, automatically linking to a Rabbinical discussion of a parashah.

A majority of potential users of English Wikipedia are not practicing Jews. I will elaborate: a majority are not Jewish, and a majority of the Jews are not practicing Judaism and Rabbinical studies, but all these people are potentially interested in the Bible for their own cultural and religious reasons. Therefore, when the topic is a particular Bible verse shared by Jews AND Christians and, frankly, the entire humanity, the Bible passage is of interest, not (just) the parashah & discussion in Judaism. Thank you for considering this.

Also, you are often wikilinking a whole chapter to what is just a section of it. But this is secondary.

I thought there would only be a few cases of such unjustified appropriation of links & topics, and have written messages on the respective talk-pages, but I see there are dozens upon dozens of them. Please reverse them all - and whoever did this, they should do the work. Cheers. Arminden (talk) 11:41, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

list display as a table?
Is it possible? Is there an excel file with the chapter/verse/parshah/aliyah listed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Riskit 4 a biskit (talk • contribs) 00:48, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

add aliyah detail
Is it possible to add the aliyah number to the respective verses? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Riskit 4 a biskit (talk • contribs) 01:06, 14 February 2023 (UTC)


 * 'closed' and 'open' portions: a portion is a parashah or an aliyah or a pasuk or a paragraph? It is not made clear Riskit 4 a biskit (talk) 11:54, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Errata/Corrections
I corrected the listing for Bereishit to add the missing parshah [Psucha] from Vayishlach (at 36:31) where it was previously missing. Now the total of Parshiyot are consistent with the Rambam's count of 43 Psuchot and 48 Stumot.

I also intend to add these totals as a valuable check/reference point to the end of the list for each Book. Menachemsdavis (talk) 02:53, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Merge proposal
Propose to merge Weekly Torah portion into this page. The two pages cover the same topic, and much of the content overlaps. Further, there's no much content or sources in the Weekly Torah portion page that justify having it's own article. Longhornsg (talk) 17:12, 9 January 2024 (UTC)


 * The distinction between the content of the two may now be clearer. Some further work is still needed to make the distinction yet clearer for the curious non-specialist. Kromholz (talk) 22:15, 6 June 2024 (UTC)