How to read the Torah in a year

Jews have read the whole Torah every year for well over a thousand years, one portion each Shabbat, and finish and restart on the same day every autumn. That schedule is the oldest reading plan in the world and it still works. This page explains how it is built, what pace it asks of you, and how to adapt it if you would rather read a little every day, or read the whole Tanakh rather than the Torah alone.

The annual cycle

The Torah is divided into 54 portions. One is read each Shabbat morning, in order from Genesis to Deuteronomy. The last portion is read on Simchat Torah, and Bereshit begins again the following Shabbat. Because the Jewish year is sometimes shorter than 54 weeks and festivals displace some readings, seven pairs of portions are combined in most years so that everything fits. The result is that every synagogue in the world is on the same page each week, and anyone who reads along is part of that.

The next cycle begins with Bereshit on Shabbat, October 10, 2026. The parasha page shows which portion is current and the dates for the year ahead.

The pace

A plan that survives missed days

1. Read in order. Start at Genesis 1:1 or at this week’s portion. Either is fine. Do not skip around; the Torah is a story before it is a law code, and the story is what carries you through Leviticus.
2. Read by verse, not by time. Decide how many verses, then stop, even mid-chapter. Verse counts are the same on a good day and a bad one; minutes are not.
3. Keep your place mechanically. A bookmark, a note, or an app that reopens where you left off. Deciding where you were is a small friction that ends habits.
4. Never catch up. A missed day is a missed day. The plan above has slack in it; the annual cycle has none, which is why synagogues combine portions, and you can too.
5. Read the Hebrew even if you cannot understand it. Sound it out with the nikud, then read the English. Within a few months you will recognize the words that repeat, and they repeat constantly.
6. Add Rashi when you are ready, not before. A first pass through the text is a legitimate way to read, and Rashi assumes you know the story.

Which translation

Any translation you will actually read. Torah Feed uses the JPS 1917 because it is complete, faithful to Jewish readings of the text, close to the Hebrew word order, and in the public domain. It sounds older than the Robert Alter or JPS 1985 translations. If you are reading Hebrew and English together, the older cadence is an advantage: the sentence shape matches, so your eye can move between the two.

Reading in Torah Feed

The app was built around this kind of plan. The reader shows one pasuk per screen, so “17 verses” is 17 swipes. It reopens exactly where you closed it. The Progress tab shows the percentage of each book and of the whole Tanakh you have read, with streaks that count days. The Discover tab jumps to this week’s parasha. And the widget puts tomorrow’s verse on your home screen, so the plan starts before you have opened anything.

Common questions