Shnayim mikra ve'echad targum: a practical guide for a busy week

Shnayim mikra is easy to describe and hard to keep up. Every week, before the portion is read in synagogue, you go through it yourself: each verse twice in Hebrew, once in translation. The trouble is always Thursday night, when the week is nearly gone and the whole portion is still ahead of you.

This guide covers where the practice comes from, what the rules are, and a way of splitting it up so that Thursday night stops being a problem. We are not rabbis, and where the halacha has more than one opinion we say so and point to the source.

Where it comes from

The source is the Talmud, Berakhot 8a. Rav Huna bar Yehuda says in the name of Rabbi Ammi that a person should always complete the weekly portions together with the congregation, twice Scripture and once targum, and that whoever does so has their days and years lengthened. The Shulchan Aruch records it as law in Orach Chaim 285:1.

In the Talmud’s time, “targum” meant the Aramaic translation of Onkelos, which was the spoken language and so worked as an explanation. Later authorities had to ask what does the same job for someone who does not speak Aramaic.

What counts as the targum

Orach Chaim 285:2 says that Rashi’s commentary has the status of targum, and that someone who fears Heaven reads both Onkelos and Rashi. So there are three accepted ways to do it: Onkelos, Rashi, or both.

There is a practical wrinkle with Rashi. He does not comment on every verse. The common practice for a verse with no Rashi is to read the Hebrew a third time. Onkelos, by contrast, covers every verse, which is one reason some authorities prefer it.

English is less settled. A bare English translation is not the same thing as Onkelos, which the Talmud treats as carrying interpretive tradition. Rashi in English translation is on firmer ground: Rav Moshe Feinstein is cited as permitting it for someone who understands it better than the Hebrew original. If you are relying on this, check with your own rabbi.

When it has to be done

Three ways to order it

The authorities accept three orders, and you can pick whichever keeps you going. You can read each verse twice and then its targum before moving to the next verse. You can do the same paragraph by paragraph, following the breaks in the Torah scroll. Or you can read the entire portion twice and then all the targum. Verse by verse is the easiest to do in short sessions, because you can stop anywhere and lose nothing.

Splitting it across the week

The traditional split is by aliyah: the portion is divided into seven readings, and you do one each day from Sunday to Friday and the seventh on Friday as well or on Shabbat morning. A verse count works just as well and is easier to track on a phone.

The numbers vary a lot by week. The shortest single portion, Vayeilech, is 30 verses. The longest, Nasso, is 176. A typical one is around 111, so six days of about 19 verses each. Reading each verse twice and then Rashi, that is 15 to 20 minutes a day. This week’s portion is Bereshit, 146 verses, read on October 10.

Two habits make the difference. Start on Sunday, even with five verses, so the week never begins at zero. And use something that remembers where you stopped, so a three-minute gap on Tuesday is usable without hunting for your place.

Doing it on a phone

Torah Feed was not designed around shnayim mikra, but its layout happens to suit the verse-by-verse order. Each screen is one pasuk with the Hebrew in full nikud, and Rashi for that verse is one tap away in Hebrew and English. You read the Hebrew twice, open Rashi, swipe to the next verse. The Discover tab opens this week’s portion and the app holds your place inside it.

Torah Feed covers the mikra and Rashi, which is the practice most people follow. If yours uses Targum Onkelos, keep Onkelos open beside it. Split the week by verse count rather than by aliyah, which is how most people pace it anyway, and the app’s progress bar shows you where you are. For the text of any portion in a browser, each of our parasha pages links to its opening chapter in Hebrew and English.

Common questions