#RASTAFARI #SimchatTorah aka #JOY RSS54 #VezotHaberakhah #BlackJews @LOJSociety

Celebrating the Torah...Each week in synagogues all across the world, a portion from the Torah (called a parashah) is chanted. Jewish tradition has divided the Torah into 54 parashiyot - roughly one portion for each week of the year - so that in the course of a year the entire Torah has been recited during services.

Torah: Deut. 33:1-34:12; Genesis 1:1-2:3; Vzot-Haberakhah

Prophets: Josh. 1:1-18

New Testament: Rev. 22:1-21

The final reading of this cycle occurs on Simchat Torah ("Joy of the Torah"), a Rabbinical festival celebrating both the completion of the year's Torah Reading cycle as well as the start of a new cycle.

During Simchat Torah the last Torah portion (from Deuteronomy) is read as well as the first verses of the first portion (from Genesis), thereby indicating that Talmud Torah - the study of Torah - never ends. The idea that Torah study is cyclical finds expression in the ritual of dancing around and around the Torah, known as hakkafot.

Simchat Torah - This holiday marks the completion of the Torah reading cycle for the year. Simchat Torah is based on the "hakhel gathering" commanded by God in the Torah: "At the end of every seven years, at the set time in the year of release, at the Feast of Sukkot, when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God ... you shall read this Torah before all Israel in their hearing. Assemble the people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, and be careful to do all the words of this Torah" Deuteronomy 31:10-12