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

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.

Categories:

Reading Schedules

Tags:

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

Contributor(s):

Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) and Anan ben David

Schedule for the Reading of Psalms and Hafṭarot corresponding to the Weekly Torah Portion (and Hafṭarot for Festivals) according to the Damascus Ḳaraites (ca. 1700)

A schedule for hafṯaroṯ for the weekly portions and festivals, as well as psalms for the weekly portions, according to a Damascus Karaite siddur from approximately 1700. According to the work of Jacob Mann’s The Bible as Read and Preached in the Old Synagogue (1940), the Ḳaraite hafṭaroṯ schedule was probably adapted from the practice of the Byzantine Romaniotes, whose practice was in many ways much closer to the one attested here than to rabbinic norms practiced today. Both ultimately derive from the old Western Rite hafṭaroṯ, albeit adapted to the annual cycle originating from the east.

Categories:

Tehilim (Psalms), Reading Schedules

Tags:

הפטרות haftarot, Nusaḥ haKaraim, לוח lu'aḥ, תהלים Psalms

Contributor(s):

Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) and Unknown