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Q&A

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Comments on What's your favorite weekly Torah section, and why?

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What's your favorite weekly Torah section, and why?

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−2

There are 54 weekly sections ("parashiyos" or "sedras") in the Torah.1 Which of these is your favorite, and why?

Answers I seek: Please don't answer with a section name with no explanation as to why. I, too, can answer 54 answers, one with each name. Without an explanation, such an answer is not informative. While you're encouraged to post your own reasons, they ideally should be ones that make the section special to other readers and not just yourself. For example, if you indicate that Vaera is your favorite because it has 121 verses and you like perfect squares, that may be relevant to another reader who likes perfect squares. But if you say Vaera is your favorite section because it has 121 verses and you like the number 121 — well, for Typical Reader X, Vaera is no better than any other section: all sections have a number of verses that may be someone's favorite number.

(This topic has come up in conversation several times in the past few years in my home and I am curious to learn the views of those outside my own home.)

  1. This is according to the usual count. Some have combined "Nitzvaim" and "Vayelech" into one, which would drop the count by 1. Others have split "Mishpatim" into two (the second being "Im kesef"), which would raise the count by one. You may answer the question according to any of these or similar definitions that you like.

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General comments (10 comments)
General comments
Isaac Moses‭ wrote over 4 years ago

I'm inclined to close this question, since it's asking for purely subjective opinions. However, as we haven't firmly established community standards, and as I'm serving in a pro tempore role, I hesitate to set precedent without discussion. First, requests for improvement. Can you edit this question to indicate why anyone would want to know (why you want to know could be sufficient) a random internet person's favorite parasha? Can you indicate objective criteria that would define an ideal answer?

msh210‭ wrote over 4 years ago

@IsaacMoses I've edited to address the questions in your comment. Feel free to delete both comments if you wish.

Isaac Moses‭ wrote over 4 years ago

@msh210 Thanks. Can you expand the motivation beyond ~"this is something I've had smaller conversations about before"? Surely there's some relatable reason why you've had such conversations at home and why you therefore want to expand the discussion to random people on the internet. Or is the motivation behind the home discussions random/unknown, while your motivation here is to determine how typical of the world your family's responses are, now that you happen to have this data from home?

AA ‭ wrote over 4 years ago

@Isaac which close reason would you think applies? Too generic?

Harel13‭ wrote over 4 years ago

As a leave-open reason, I think that questions such as this are helpful in getting to know one another and building an online community.

Isaac Moses‭ wrote over 4 years ago · edited over 4 years ago

@AA I think the community could choose to interpret either "too generic" or "not constructive" as including open-ended, opinion-based questions like this. The community could also choose to include a statement in our scope to the effect of "objective questions only," which would make questions like this "off-topic." Before I push for conversation on those lines (which anyone else is welcome to do in the mean time), I want to see how strong of an example this question can be.

msh210‭ wrote over 4 years ago

@IsaacMoses , primarily the latter.

AA ‭ wrote over 4 years ago · edited over 4 years ago

@msh did you mean to exclude the variant customs that split any of vayera, mikketz, teruma, tetzaveh, ki-tisa, vayakhel, pekudei, or chukkat and only allow customs of splitting nitzavim or mishpatim?

msh210‭ wrote over 4 years ago

@AA, no, I just didn't know of them. I'll edit.

DonielF‭ wrote over 4 years ago

Please weigh in your thoughts on these types of questions at https://judaism.codidact.com/questions/276955