Triennial Cycle - Background: Torah Reading

Background: Torah Reading

The introduction of public reading of the Torah by Ezra the Scribe after the return of the Jewish people from the Babylonian Captivity is described in Nehemiah Chapter 8. Prior to Ezra, the mitzvah of Torah reading was based on the Biblical commandment of Hakhel (Deuteronomy 31:10–13), by which once every 7 years the entire people was to be gathered, "men, women and children," and hear much of Deuteronomy, the final volume of the Pentateuch, read to them (see the closing chapters of the Talmudic Tractate Sotah). Traditionally, the mitzvah of gathering the people and reading them the Torah under Hakhel was to be performed by the King. Under Ezra, Torah reading became more frequent and the congregation themselves substituted for the King's role. Ezra is traditionally credited with initiating the modern custom of reading thrice weekly in the synagogue. This reading is an obligation incumbent on the congregation, not an individual, and did not replace the Hakhel reading by the king. The reading of the Law in the synagogue can be traced to at least about the second century B.C., when the grandson of Sirach refers to it in his preface as an Egyptian practise; it must, therefore, have existed even earlier in Judea.

However, the annual reading cycle as practiced by the Jewish exile community in Babylonia was known by them to be different from the custom of the remaining Jews of Syria Palaestina. The Babylonian Talmud (Megillah 29b) "makes only one oblique reference to the triennial cycle: 'The people of the west (ie the Jews of eretz yisrael) who complete (sic.) of the Torah in three years.'"