Schedule for a semiannual Torah reading cycle as recorded by ‘Anan ben David (ca. 8th c. CE)

Contributor(s):

Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) and Anan ben David

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15 March 2026 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

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46th century A.M., 8th century C.E., הפטרות haftarot, Nusaḥ haKaraim, לוח lu'aḥ, תהלים Psalms, semiannual Torah reading cycle, Torah Reading

All Jews around the world today follow some variant of the annual cycle of Torah readings, developed in the Babylonian diaspora in the talmudic era. In this cycle, the entire Torah is read once a year. (Some Reform communities recite a selection from each parasha, while many Conservative communities follow an ersatz triennial system where a third of each parashah is read every week, but the parashiyot still follow the annual cycle.) The old Erets Yisrael rite had a triennial, or technically semiseptennial, cycle, going through the entire Torah once every three and a half years.

But there is a third cycle that has otherwise been completely forgotten about: the semiannual cycle. This cycle was developed by ‘Anan ben David, the legendary founder (or if you ask the Ḳaraites, reviver) of the Ḳaraite movement, in his (only fragmentarily preserved) Sefer ha-Mitsvot. In it, the entire Torah is read twice a year, concluding on the intermediate sabbath of both Pesaḥ and Sukkot before starting anew the next week. This idea did not catch on, even among the Ḳaraites, who to this day use an adaptation of the rabbinic annual cycle instead. But it has largely been preserved. Here it is restored and reconstructed for those whose main complaint with the Torah reading is it isn’t long enough: The reconstructed semiannual Torah reading cycle of Anan ben David based on Jacob Mann’s “Anan’s Liturgy and His Half-Yearly Cycle of the Reading of the Law” (Journal of Jewish Lore and Philosophy, 1:3/4 [July/October 1919], pp. 329-353), with my reconstructions in red

Sabbath	Verses
First sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Genesis 1:1–10:32
Second sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Genesis 11:1–22:24
Third sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Genesis 23:1–32:3
Fourth sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Genesis 32:4–40:23
Fifth sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Genesis 41:1—50:26
Sixth sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Exodus 1:1—9:35
Seventh sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Exodus 10:1—17:16
Eighth sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Exodus 18:1—23:29
Ninth sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Exodus 23:30—34:26
Tenth sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Exodus 34:27—40:38
Eleventh sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Leviticus 1:1—7:38
Twelfth sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Leviticus 8:1—12:8
Thirteenth sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Leviticus 13:1—17:16
Fourteenth sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Leviticus 18:1—21:16
Fifteenth sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Leviticus 21:17—27:34
Sixteenth sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Numbers 1:1—7:89
Seventeenth sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Numbers 8:1—15:41
Eighteenth sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Numbers 16:1—20:13
Nineteenth sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Numbers 20:14—30:1
Twentieth sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Numbers 30:2—36:13
Twenty-first sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Deuteronomy 1:1—6:3 (or 8:20)
Twenty-second sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Deuteronomy 6:4 (or 9:1)—14:21
Twenty-third sabbath after Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Deuteronomy 14:22—22:5
Sabbath before Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Deuteronomy 22:6—29:8
Intermediate sabbath of Pesaḥ or Sukkot	Deuteronomy 29:9—34:12

Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)

From a family of musicians, Isaac Gantwerk Mayer believes that creative art is one of the most powerful ways to get in touch with the divine. He composes music and poetry in Hebrew and English. (He also authors his own original works and transcribes Hebrew and Aramaic text, adding niqqud and t'amim as needed.) Isaac runs a Jewish music transcription service, which will transcribe and set any Jewish music in any language, recorded or written. Contact his service on Facebook or via his music blog.

Anan ben David

Anan Ben David (ענן בן דוד; ca. 715 – ca. 795) is widely considered to be a major founder of Ḳaraite Judaism. His followers were called Ananites and, like modern Ḳaraites, did not consider the lineage of rabbinic Jewish teachings to be authoritative.

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Schedule for a semiannual Torah reading cycle as recorded by ‘Anan ben David (ca. 8th c. CE)

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