The Weekly Parsha

Every parsha across all five Chumashim, Bereishis through Devarim. 61 stories, each a printed book starring your own child.

Parshas Bereishis - Hashem creates the world in six days - light and darkness, sky and sea, every creature that swims and flies and walks - and rests on the seventh. Adam and Chava are placed in Gan Eden, and a child watches the whole world come into being one word at a time.
Parshas Noach - The world has gone crooked, and one man is asked to build a teivah and fill it with pairs of every living thing. Forty days of rain, a dove sent out over the water, and a rainbow that promises it will never happen again.
Parshas Lech Lecha - Avraham is told to leave everything he knows for a land he has not seen. He goes. Along the way he rescues Lot, argues for the sake of others, and is shown a night sky full of stars and told his children will be as many.
Parshas Vayeira - Three visitors arrive at Avraham's tent in the heat of the day, and he runs to serve them. Sarah laughs, Sedom burns, and at the end Avraham is asked for the one thing he cannot imagine giving - and Yitzchak is spared.
Parshas Chayei Sarah - Sarah's life ends and Avraham buys the Me'aras HaMachpeilah to bury her. Then Eliezer is sent to find a wife for Yitzchak, and he knows he has found her when a girl at a well draws water for ten thirsty camels without being asked.
Parshas Toldos - Twins are born who could not be less alike. Yitzchak digs his father's wells again, Yaakov buys the birthright for a pot of lentils, and Rivka sends her son to receive the brachos - and then to run.
Parshas Vayeitzei - Alone on the road with a stone for a pillow, Yaakov dreams of a ladder reaching to shamayim. He works seven years for Rachel, then seven more, and leaves Lavan's house with a family and flocks of his own.
Parshas Vayishlach - Yaakov prepares to meet Eisav - with gifts, with tefillah, and ready to fight. In the night a stranger wrestles him until dawn and gives him a new name: Yisrael, the one who struggled and endured.
Parshas Vayeishev - Yosef's brothers cannot bear his dreams or his striped coat. He is thrown into a pit, sold, and carried down to Mitzrayim - and even in prison he is the one people come to when they need a dream explained.
Parshas Mikeitz - Paroh dreams of seven fat cows and seven thin ones, and no one can tell him what it means until Yosef is brought up from the dungeon. In a single day he goes from prisoner to viceroy, and his brothers arrive looking for food.
Parshas Vayigash - Yehudah steps forward and offers himself in Binyamin's place, and Yosef cannot hold it in any longer. "I am Yosef - is my father still alive?" The family is whole again, and Yaakov comes down to Mitzrayim.
Parshas Vayechi - Yaakov gathers his sons to bless them, each one in his own way, and asks to be buried in Eretz Yisrael. A family that began with one man leaving home has become twelve shevatim.
Parshas Shemos - A new king rises who did not know Yosef. A baby is hidden in a basket on the Nile and raised in the palace; grown, he sees a bush burning without being consumed and is sent back to say four words to Paroh: let my people go.
Parshas Va'eira - Paroh says no, and the makkos begin - blood, frogs, lice, wild animals, dever, boils, and hail that burns while it falls. Seven plagues, and a heart that hardens after every one.
Parshas Bo - Locusts, darkness you could feel, and then the night of makkas bechoros. Blood on the doorposts, matzah baked in haste, and by morning Bnei Yisrael walk out of Mitzrayim as a nation.
Parshas Beshalach - The sea in front, Mitzrayim behind. Moshe raises his staff, the water splits into walls, and a whole people walks through on dry land - then sings shirah on the far shore.
Parshas Yisro - Yisro comes to the midbar with advice, and then the mountain trembles. Thunder, fire, the sound of a shofar growing louder, and the Aseres HaDibros spoken to every single person standing there.
Parshas Mishpatim - After the fire and thunder come the details: how to treat a worker, a neighbour, a borrowed animal, someone who has nothing. The laws that turn a nation that heard Hashem into a nation that lives like it.
Parshas Terumah - Bring gold, silver, wool dyed blue and purple, acacia wood - whatever your heart moves you to give. From those gifts comes the Mishkan, the Aron, the Shulchan and the Menorah, so that Hashem's presence can rest among them.
Parshas Tetzaveh - Pure olive oil for a lamp that never goes out, and the bigdei kehunah: the robe with bells along its hem, the choshen set with twelve stones, and a gold tzitz across Aharon's forehead.
Parshas Ki Sisa - Moshe is on the mountain forty days, and below the people build a golden calf. He shatters the luchos, davens for them, and climbs back up to bring down a second set - and comes down with his face shining.
Parshas Vayakhel - Moshe gathers the people and they bring so much for the Mishkan that he has to tell them to stop. Betzalel builds every piece exactly as it was shown, and Shabbos comes first, even now.
Parshas Pekudei - Every coin and every thread is accounted for, and the Mishkan is finally raised. A cloud rests over it by day and a fire by night, and Sefer Shemos ends with Hashem dwelling among His people.
Parshas Vayakhel-Pekudei - The people bring more than the Mishkan needs, Betzalel builds it exactly as shown, and every coin is accounted for. When it is raised at last, a cloud rests on it by day and a fire by night.
Parshas Vayikra - Sefer Vayikra opens with a call to Moshe and the laws of the korbanos - the olah, the minchah, the shelamim. A book about coming close, and about what a person brings when they want to.
Parshas Tzav - The instructions turn to the kohanim: the fire on the mizbe'ach that must never go out, and the seven days in which Aharon and his sons are prepared to serve.
Parshas Shemini - On the eighth day the Mishkan begins its work, and a fire comes down. Then the simanim of a kosher animal, bird and fish - the signs a Yiddishe child learns to look for at the table.
Parshas Tazria - The laws of tumah and taharah, and of tzara'as - a mark on the skin, on a garment, even on the wall of a house, and the kohen who is called to look at it.
Parshas Metzora - How a person with tzara'as is brought back in - the birds, the cedar wood, the days outside the camp and the day of returning. Chazal tie the affliction to lashon hara, and the way back to guarding one's mouth.
Parshas Tazria-Metzora - Tzara'as on skin, on clothing, even on the walls of a house - and the long road back into the camp. Chazal tie the mark to lashon hara, which makes this a parsha about the power of what we say.
Parshas Acharei Mos - The avodah of Yom Kippur in the Kodesh HaKodashim: the two goats, the ketores, and the one day a year the Kohen Gadol steps inside. Then the laws that keep a Yiddishe home holy.
Parshas Kedoshim - "You shall be holy." Leave the corners of your field for the poor, judge fairly, do not stand by while someone is hurt, do not carry hatred in your heart - and love your fellow as yourself.
Parshas Acharei Mos-Kedoshim - The avodah of Yom Kippur, and then the call to be holy: leave the corners of the field, judge fairly, do not bear a grudge, and love your fellow as yourself.
Parshas Emor - Laws of kedushah for the kohanim, and then the calendar of the year - Shabbos, Pesach, the Omer, Shavuos, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkos - the moadim laid out one after another.
Parshas Behar - Shemittah and Yovel: a year when the land rests, and a fiftieth year when the shofar sounds, servants go free and fields return to their families. A parsha about who the land really belongs to.
Parshas Bechukosai - The brachos that come with keeping the Torah and the warnings that follow leaving it - rain in its season, peace in the land, and Hashem walking among His people.
Parshas Behar-Bechukosai - The land rests in shemittah and returns to its families in Yovel - and then the brachos that come with keeping the Torah and the warnings that follow leaving it.
Parshas Bamidbar - Bnei Yisrael are counted and camp shevet by shevet around the Mishkan, each with its own flag - a whole nation arranged in the midbar with the Mishkan at the centre.
Parshas Naso - The families of Levi and their loads, the nazir who separates himself, Birkas Kohanim, and twelve nesi'im who each bring the same offering - and are each written out in full.
Parshas Beha'aloscha - Aharon lights the Menorah, the cloud lifts and the camp travels, and the people complain about the food. Miriam speaks about her brother and learns what words can do.
Parshas Shelach - Twelve meraglim go up to see the land. Ten come back afraid and one report changes everything - forty days of touring become forty years of travelling. Yehoshua and Kalev stand alone.
Parshas Korach - Korach challenges Moshe and Aharon and gathers two hundred and fifty men behind him. The ground opens, and Aharon's staff blossoms overnight with almonds to settle the question for good.
Parshas Chukas - The parah adumah, Miriam's passing and the well that goes with her, Moshe striking the rock instead of speaking to it, and the copper snake the people look up at to be healed.
Parshas Balak - A king hires Bilaam to curse Bnei Yisrael. His donkey sees the malach before he does, and every time he opens his mouth to curse, a brachah comes out instead - "Mah tovu ohalecha Yaakov."
Parshas Chukas-Balak - The parah adumah and the rock Moshe strikes, and then Bilaam - hired to curse, carried by a donkey that sees more than he does, and blessing Bnei Yisrael every time he opens his mouth.
Parshas Pinchas - Pinchas acts and is given a bris shalom. The people are counted again, the daughters of Tzelafchad ask for their portion and are answered, and Yehoshua is chosen to lead.
Parshas Matos - The seriousness of a vow - a word given is a word kept. The war with Midyan, and the shevatim who ask to settle east of the Yarden and promise to cross over and fight first.
Parshas Masei - Forty-two journeys through the midbar, written out one by one, and the borders of Eretz Yisrael. The arei miklat are set aside, and Sefer Bamidbar closes at the edge of the land.
Parshas Matos-Masei - A vow taken seriously, the shevatim who settle east of the Yarden, and then forty-two journeys through the midbar written out one by one as Bnei Yisrael reach the edge of the land.
Parshas Devarim - Moshe begins his final words to the nation - forty years remembered out loud, the meraglim, the wars, and the lessons of a generation that grew up in the midbar.
Parshas Va'eschanan - Moshe davens to enter the land and is told to look instead. The Aseres HaDibros are said again, and Shema Yisrael is given - the words a Yiddishe child learns first and says last.
Parshas Eikev - Remember the mon, remember the well, remember that it was not your own strength that brought you here. A parsha about gratitude, and about a land that drinks rain from shamayim.
Parshas Re'eh - A brachah and a klalah set before the people, the laws of kosher animals, maaser, shemittah of debts, and giving to a poor person with an open hand and without a grudging heart.
Parshas Shoftim - Judges at every gate and justice pursued honestly. Laws for a king, for kohanim, for a navi - and the rules of war, including the trees that may not be cut down.
Parshas Ki Seitzei - More mitzvos than any other parsha - returning a lost object, sending away the mother bird, building a fence around a roof, honest weights, and remembering what Amalek did.
Parshas Ki Savo - Bikkurim carried up to the Beis HaMikdash in a basket, the brachos and klalos declared on two mountains, and Moshe reminding the people how far they have come.
Parshas Nitzavim - "You are all standing here today" - every single one, from the water-drawer to the leader. Teshuvah is not far away or across the sea; it is very close, in your mouth and in your heart.
Parshas Vayeilech - Moshe at a hundred and twenty hands the leadership to Yehoshua, writes the Torah down and gives it to the kohanim, and commands Hakhel - the whole nation gathered to hear it read.
Parshas Nitzavim-Vayeilech - Everyone stands together to enter the bris, and teshuvah is close enough to reach. Moshe hands the leadership to Yehoshua, writes down the Torah, and commands Hakhel.
Parshas Ha'azinu - Moshe's shirah - shamayim and earth called as witnesses, the story of a nation told as poetry, and a last look at the land from Har Nevo.
Parshas V'Zos Habracha - Moshe blesses each shevet by name, sees the whole land from the mountain, and passes away with no one knowing his burial place. The Torah ends, and on Simchas Torah we begin again.

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