Parashah Totally Explained

Everything about Parashah totally explained

A parashah (Hebrew: "portion," plural: parashot or parashiyyot) is a section of a Biblical book in the masoretic text of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible).
The word is used in three senses:

Sephardim use the word parashah to refer to one of the 54 reading portions into which the Pentateuch is divided. (Ashkenazim use the word Sidra or Sedra with this meaning.)
A parashah can also mean one of the seven sub-divisions of a Sidra, to which an individual is called up in the reading of the Torah.
Properly, parashah refers to a physical paragraph in a Torah scroll, or in scrolls of the books of Nevi'im or Ketuvim (especially megillot), Masoretic codices from the Middle Ages, and printed editions of the masoretic text. These may be either "open", if they begin with a new line, or "closed", if they begin with a space left in the middle of a line. It is this sense that's discussed in the rest of this article.

The division of the text into parashot for the biblical books is independent of chapter and verse numbers, which are not part of the Masoretic tradition, and parashot are not numbered. Some have special titles. The division of parashot found in the modern-day Torah scrolls of all Jewish communities (Ashkenazic, Sephardic, and Yemenite) is based upon the systematic list provided by Maimonides in Mishneh Torah, Laws of Tefillin, Mezuzah and Torah Scrolls, chapter 8. Maimonides based his division of the parashot for the Torah on the Aleppo Codex. The division of parashot for the books of Nevi'im and Ketuvim was never completely standardized in printed Hebrew bibles and handwritten scrolls, though important attempts were made to document it and create fixed rules.
Incorrect division of the text into parashot, either by indicating a parashah in the wrong place or by using the wrong spacing technique, halakhically invalidates a Torah scroll according to Maimonides.

Purpose of the section divisions

A parashah break creates a textual pause, roughly analogous to a modern paragraph break. Such a pause usually has one of the following purposes:

In most cases, a new parashah begins where a new topic or a new thought is clearly indicated in the biblical text.

In many places, however, the parashah divisions are used even in places where it's clear that no new topic begins, in order to highlight a special verse by creating a textual pause before it or after it (or both).

A special example of #2 is for lists: The individual elements in many biblical lists are separated by parashah spacing of one type or another. To decide exactly where a new topic or thought begins within a biblical text involves a degree of subjectivity on the part of the reader. This subjective element may help explain differences amongst the various masoretic codices in some details of the section divisions (though it should be emphasized that their degree of conformity is high). It may also sometimes explain why certain verses that might seem like introductions to a new topic lack a section division, or why such divisions appear in places where no new topic is indicated.
For this reason, at times the parashah divisions may contribute to biblical exegesis.

History of the section divisions

The idea of spacing between portions is mentioned in midrashic literature, and the idea of "open" and "closed" portions is mentioned in the Talmud. Early masoretic lists detailing the Babylonian tradition include systematic and detailed discussion of exactly where portions begin and which type they are.
Tiberian masoretic codices have similar but not identical parashah divisions throughout the Bible. Unlike the Babylonian mesorah, however, Tiberian masoretic notes never mention the parashah divisions or attempt to systematize them. This is related to the fact that the Babylonian lists are independent compositions, while the Tiberian notes are in the margins of the biblical text itself, which shows the parashot in a highly visible way.
In the centuries following the Tiberian mesorah, there were ever-increasing efforts to document and standardize the details of the parashah divisions, especially for the Torah, and even for Nevi'im and Ketuvim as time went on.

Spacing techniques

In most modern Torah scrolls and Jewish editions of the Bible, there are two types of parashot: An "open portion" (parashah petuhah) and a "closed portion" (parashah setumah). An "open portion" is roughly similar to a modern paragraph: The text of the previous portion ends before the end of the column (leaving a space at the end of the line), and the new "open" portion starts at the beginning of the next line (but with no indentation). A "closed portion", on the other hand, leaves a space in the middle of the line of text, where the previous portion ends before the space, and the next portion starts after it, towards the end of the line of text.
An "open portion" (petuhah) is often abbreviated with the Hebrew letter "פ" (peh), and a "closed portion" (setumah) with the Hebrew letter "ס" (samekh). Rough English equivalents are "P" and "S" respectively.
In masoretic codices and in medieval scrolls, these two spacing techniques allowed for a larger range of options:

An "open portion" always started at the beginning of a new line. This could happen the way described above, but also by leaving a blank line between the two portions, thus allowing the previous portion to sometimes entirely fill its last line of text.

A "closed portion" never began at the beginning of a line. This could happen as in modern scrolls (a space in the middle of a line), but also by the previous portion ending before the end of the line, and the new portion beginning on the next line after an indentation. Most printed Hebrew bibles today represent the parashot using the more limited techniques found in typical modern Torah scrolls: A space in the middle of a line for a closed portion, and beginning at the start of the next line for an open portion (not a blank line). A notable exception is The Jerusalem Crown (The Bible of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2000), whose typography and layout is fashioned after the Aleppo codex, and follows the medieval spacing techniques for parashah divisions by leaving an empty line for format described here originated in the typically narrow columns of the Tiberian masoretic codices, in which a line of text containing only two words at opposite margins with a gap between them appears similar to a standard closed parashah. However, in many later scrolls the columns are much wider, such that lines with single words at opposite margins create a huge gap in the middle. For this reason, in many scrolls these eleven lines are written in very large letters, so that the gap won't appear unreasonable.

Literature cited

Books and articles cited in the references to this article:

Finfer, Pesah. Masoret ha-Torah veha-Nevi'im. Vilna, 1906 (Hebrew). Online text (PDF)

Ganzfried, Shlomo. Keset ha-Sofer. Ungvár (Uzhhorod), 1835 (Hebrew). Online text (PDF)

Goshen-Gottstein, Moshe. "The Authenticity of the Aleppo Codex." Textus 1 (1960):17-58.

Goshen-Gottstein, Moshe. "A Recovered Part of the Aleppo Codex." Textus 5 (1966):53-59.

Levy, B. Barry. Fixing God's Torah: The Accuracy of the Hebrew Bible text in Jewish Law. Oxford University Press, 2001.

Ofer, Yosef. "M. D. Cassuto's Notes on the Aleppo Codex." Sefunot 19 (1989):277-344 (Hebrew). Online text (PDF)

Ofer, Yosef. "The Aleppo Codex and the Bible of R. Shalom Shachna Yellin" in Rabbi Mordechai Breuer Festschrift: Collected Papers in Jewish Studies, ed. M. Bar-Asher, 1:295-353. Jerusalem, 1992 (Hebrew). Online text (PDF)

Penkower, Jordan S. "Maimonides and the Aleppo Codex." Textus 9 (1981):39-128.

Penkower, Jordan S. New Evidence for the Pentateuch Text in the Aleppo Codex. Bar-Ilan University Press: Ramat Gan, 1992 (Hebrew).

Yeivin, Israel. "The Division into Sections in the Book of Psalms." Textus 7 (1969):76-102.

Yeivin, Israel. Introduction to the Tiberian Masorah. Trans. and ed. E. G. Revell. Masoretic Studies 5. Missoula, Montana: Scholars Press, 1980. Bible editions consulted (based on the Aleppo Codex):

Mossad Harav Kuk: Jerualem, 1977-1982. Mordechai Breuer, ed.

Horev publishers: Jerusalem, 1996-98. Mordechai Breuer, ed.

Jerusalem Crown: The Bible of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, 2000. Yosef Ofer, ed. (under the guidance of Mordechai Breuer).

Jerusalem Simanim Institute (Feldheim Publishers), 2004.

Mikraot Gedolot Haketer, Bar-Ilan University Press, 1992-present.

Mechon Mamre, online version

. Bible editions consulted (based on the Leningrad Codex):

Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft: Stuttgart, 1984.

Adi publishers. Tel Aviv, 1986. Aharon Dotan, ed.

The JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Philadelphia, 1999.

Biblia Hebraica Quinta: General Introduction and Megilloth. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2004 (BHQ). Bible editions consulted (based on other traditions):

Koren Publishers

: Jerusalem, 1962.Further Information

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