Weekly Torah Portion Quiz
15 questions on how the weekly Torah-reading cycle (parashot) works — plus this week's actual portion, calculated live from the Hebrew calendar.
How the weekly reading cycle works
The Torah is divided into 54 weekly portions (parashot), read in order across the Hebrew year so the entire Torah is completed annually and begun again — the two are read back to back on Simchat Torah, the holiday that marks the cycle's finish and restart. Because a Hebrew year usually has fewer available Shabbatot than 54 (some Shabbatot fall during holidays that get their own special reading instead), several pairs of shorter portions are combined into "double portions" as needed to keep the whole cycle on schedule; a Hebrew leap year, which adds an extra month, needs fewer of these combinations since it has more Shabbatot to work with.
This page's "this week's portion" box is calculated from the same validated Hebrew-calendar arithmetic used on the Hebrew Date Converter, combined with the standard parasha-scheduling rules (based on the reference algorithm published by Dr. Irv Bromberg, University of Toronto). It uses the Diaspora reading schedule (the one followed outside Israel), which occasionally differs from Israel's by a week around certain holidays.
Frequently asked questions
Do my answers or score get saved anywhere?
No — everything runs in your browser. Nothing is saved, tracked, or sent anywhere by BibleCalcs.
Why does the "this week's portion" box sometimes show two names?
That's a "double portion" — two shorter parashot read together on the same Shabbat so the full 54-portion cycle still finishes within one Hebrew year.
Why does it sometimes say there's no weekly portion?
On a Shabbat that falls during a major holiday (like Sukkot or the first days of Passover), the congregation reads a special holiday portion instead of the regular weekly one.
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