One of the best decisions I made in my early years in Beis Midrash was to learn one Parsha a day. It was at the height of my learning frustrations when it felt I was just learning bits of pieces of Masechtas and everything ultimately faded away. How was I ever going to master anything?

It was then that I decided to start with Chumash by reading one Parsha a day and commit to memorizing Simanim to retain its organization. I’ll share more about Simanim in a different post but point out here the power of “Parsha Yomi.”

It was a simple Seder. I just read through the Pesukim without any pressure to learn the Rashis or stop when I didn’t understand something. My goal was to become comfortable with the content in the Chumash once and for all. On average it took about fifteen minutes a day and I finished the Chumash every two months, six times a year.

For anyone deflated by the thought of waiting seven years for a Siyum, Parsha Yomi is the perfect antidote.

Initially I did it in English reading from Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan’s Living Torah. My Hebrew wasn’t strong enough at the time and I didn’t want this Seder to also serve as an Ulpan. Hebrew would slow me down considerably and make the Seder painful and unproductive. Painful and unproductive was what I was trying to escape.

I also felt that learning the Chumash in my mother tongue would accelerate my fluency. Learning it in English meant I had immediate understanding of the basics in a basic way. How many stories or halachos would have been obfuscated if I had pressured myself into learning it only in Hebrew?

Eventually when I was ready I shifted over to the Hebrew and learned from the Koren Tanach. The Koren Tanach is a beautiful, minimalist Chumash that features just the Pesukim organized into the Pesuchos and the Stumos. It’s ideal for Parsha Yomi because each Parsha is covered in four to six pages with a clear sense of organization. Learning from a Mikros Gedolos or Rashi Chumash means turning many pages of Parsha fragments and that makes it harder to retain.

Here are some reasons I highly recommend starting Parsha Yomi.

1. Chumash is the foundation for all learning and Parsha Yomi helps you master it.  

It’s simple. If you have a strong foundation you can build. If you don’t learning is a mess and everything falls apart. It feels great to walk into a Masechta and from the get go have the necessary material at your fingertips. To know the sources, the mitzvos and the references that are going to be used to build an understanding is fundamental to the learning process. It’s also a great feeling.

Without a strong hold on Chumash learning becomes inverted. People jump into Masechtos and then when confronted with a Pasuk, they have to rummage through the Chumash painfully trying to find the source. They end up learning the passuk to explain the Gemara instead of learning the Gemara to clarify the passuk.

Without a concerted effort to master Chumash, it isn’t going to happen. I rarely meet people who have the Chumash organized at their fingertips just from learning Parsha HaShavua. Only Baalei Kriah do, and most people aren’t going to become baalei kriah. Parsha Yomi gives you the basis to attain mastery.

2. You begin to see a Parsha as a whole. 

Before I started Parsha Yomi, every Parsha felt like a cholent. I was never exactly sure what was in there but I knew it covered a lot of different topics. Then every year I’d get back to certain Parshios and feel like I was at the beginning all over again.

With Parsha Yomi the Chumash began to shrink. It became less daunting, more manageable and familiar. That’s the natural result of seeing a Parsha six times a year instead of just once.

3. It helps you connect the dots all over the Chumash.

The Chumash is a whole different read when you pick up the pace. Reading the story of the Golden Calf in Ki Tissa four days after reading about the giving of the Torah in Yisro is a different experience than waiting a month in between. More material is fresh in your mind and it becomes clearer as to which parshios connect.

Reading through the Chumash at this pace also helps you develop familiarity with concepts that come up multiple times. As an example, it only takes ten days to read through Sefer Vayikra in Parsha Yomi. You’re going to see many concepts repeated throughtout the Sefer such as Karbonos and seeing them juxtaposed in different Parshios helps you distinguish the meaning of each presentation.

4. Rashis as well as other mefarshim become more relevant and compelling.

What’s bothering Rashi should really bother you too but it’s hard for that to happen when you’re not familiar or clear on the pesukim. I can’t underscore how different learning mefarshim is when you the feel comfortable with the pesukim. Again it goes back to the inverted learning experience. Instead of learning the pesukim to understand the mefaresh, you’re learning the mefaresh to get clarity on the pesukim.

If I haven’t convinced you yet to start Parsha Yomi I plan on posting more benefits soon.

If you’re interested, click here to get the Parsha Yomi Calendar