עברית
Faith
Who divided the Torah into parshiyot?
Question
With Hashem's help, honored rabbi, hello.
1. Who divided the Torah into parshiyot? Why? And when?
2. Who divided the Tanach into chapters and verses? And when was this done? And is it true that the Christians were the ones who divided the Tanach into chapters and verses? If so, does that mean that for us the verses as they divided them have no significance?
Answer
Hello and blessings.
The verses were divided by Hashem at the time of the giving of the Torah.
As for the parshiyot: there are parshiyot in the Torah that were also given to Moses from Sinai, and they are marked in the Chumash with the letters P and S. P = open, meaning that in the Torah scroll a section ends here and the line remains blank, and the next section begins on a new line. S = closed, meaning that the next section begins after a space, but on the same line, and these are what are called parshiyot.
The weekly Torah portion: Jewish sages in the time of the Second Temple divided it when they instituted reading from the Torah every Shabbat and completing the Torah each year. They divided it into parshiyot so that the Torah would be completed every year, and there were customs according to which the entire Torah reading was spread over three years and not in one year, as is our custom.
The chapters were made by the Christians, and they have no significance whatsoever.
With blessings,
Benjamin Shmueli
