Start the Torah from Bereishit
Every year, on Simchat Torah, the Jewish world finishes reading the Torah, the very last words of Deuteronomy, and turns immediately back to the first page: "When God began to create heaven and earth..." No pause, no ceremony of closure. The ending and the beginning happen in the same breath, because in Jewish learning, the Torah is never actually finished. Whatever kind of year you had, whatever you did or didn't learn, this is the moment built into the calendar for starting again from page one, alongside everyone else doing the same thing.
When is Simchat Torah in 2026?
In 2026, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah are combined into a single day in Israel, Saturday, October 3, and observed as two separate days in the Diaspora, with Simchat Torah falling on Sunday, October 4. The first Shabbat of the new cycle, Shabbat Bereishit, when Parashat Bereishit is read in full, follows the next week: Saturday, October 10, 2026. That's the natural moment to actually open the text, once the dancing and the holiday meals are behind you and an ordinary Shabbat routine picks back up.
What's actually in Parashat Bereishit?
Parashat Bereishit (Genesis 1:1 through 6:8) is the opening act of the entire Torah, and it covers far more ground than most people remember: the six days of creation, the making of the first human beings, the Garden of Eden and its one forbidden tree, Cain and Abel, and the slow moral decline of humanity that sets up Noah's story the following week. It's dense with the questions every later book of the Torah keeps circling back to: what does it mean to be made in God's image, why does free will come with consequences, and what does one human being owe another. You don't need any background to start here. It's the one week of the year built for beginners by design, since the entire Jewish world is opening to the same page at once.
Why start here, and why now?
Starting the Torah cycle at Bereishit isn't just chronological, it's an invitation the calendar repeats every single year: no matter how last year's learning went, the door is open again, at the very beginning, with everyone else. There's no makeup work, no sense of having missed the start; the start comes back to you. If you've been meaning to learn Torah for years and never found the moment, this is the moment the tradition itself built for that exact hesitation. It's also, practically, the easiest week of the year to invite someone else along: nobody is behind, because the whole world just restarted together. (What is Simchat Torah? has the fuller picture of the holiday itself, the dancing, the hakafot, and the idea underneath them.)
How to actually follow the parsha, week by week
Once you're in Bereishit, staying with the weekly cycle is the whole game:
- Read the week's portion (or even a section of it) before Shabbat, so the story is fresh when you sit down at the table.
- Sit with one idea or one hard question from it. Bereishit alone raises several: why does God rest, what is the nature of the first sin, why does Cain's punishment sound almost gentle for what he did.
- Bring that one idea to your Shabbat table. A single good question does more for a Shabbat meal than a full summary of the parsha ever will.
- Do it again next week, with Noach. Missing a week doesn't break anything; the cycle comes back around every year regardless, so there's no streak to protect and no guilt in picking it up mid-cycle later.
How to follow the weekly parsha walks through this rhythm in more depth, including how to bring it to a table full of people who didn't read anything in advance.
Does everyone restart at the same pace?
Most synagogues read the Torah on an annual cycle, finishing at Simchat Torah and starting again at Bereishit the same week, which is the cycle this guide describes. Some communities, more often Reform and some Conservative congregations, instead follow a triennial cycle, reading roughly a third of each week's portion per year and completing the whole Torah over three years. Even those communities still mark Simchat Torah as the shared festive turning point, and Bereishit is still the portion that opens the new round of readings. Whichever cycle your community follows, the week after Simchat Torah is the natural on-ramp.
Begin your own cycle with Derekh Learning
Derekh Learning prepares Parashat Bereishit, and every week's portion after it, as a plain-English lesson with a Shabbat-table guide, in a voice that fits you, from a total beginner to someone who wants Rashi and the classic commentators alongside the text. Browse the parsha cycle, read what Simchat Torah is, or start your own learning today, the exact week the whole tradition is starting over too.
