Shnayim Mikra v’Echad Targum שְׁנַיִם מִקְרָא וְאֶחָד תַּרְגּוּם

What Shnayim Mikra v’Echad Targum is

Shnayim Mikra v’Echad Targum means “twice the text and once the translation.” It is the weekly practice of reading the parsha that will be leined in shul this Shabbat: every pasuk twice in the Hebrew, and once in the Aramaic translation of Onkelos. By the time the Baal Koreh opens the sefer Torah, you have already been through the whole parsha on your own, three times.

The source is in the Gemara, Berachot 8a. Rav Huna bar Yehudah said in the name of Rabbi Ami: a person should always complete the parshiyot together with the congregation, twice the text and once the translation, and whoever does so has his days and years lengthened. The Shulchan Aruch codifies it in Orach Chaim 285, and the Mishnah Berurah there discusses the details that people ask about most.

How the reading is arranged on this page

Each parsha is set out pasuk by pasuk: the Hebrew, the Hebrew again, and then the Targum, so you never lose your place between the three readings. The seven aliyot are marked so you can do one a day from Sunday to Friday and finish before Shabbat, which is how many people pace it. The text size control at the top is for reading on a phone. If you want to hear the parsha leined while you follow, every parsha page links to its leining recording.

When to do it

The parsha can be read any time from the Minchah of the previous Shabbat, when the first section of the coming parsha is read, until the Torah reading on Shabbat morning. The Mishnah Berurah brings the custom of the meticulous to finish before Shabbat, ideally on Friday, and some finish before the Shabbat morning meal. If the week ran away with you, the Shulchan Aruch allows catching up through Simchat Torah, when the year’s cycle ends. What matters is to keep pace with the congregation: this parsha, this week.

Onkelos or Rashi

The “one translation” is Targum Onkelos, the ancient Aramaic rendering that is printed beside the Hebrew in every Chumash. The Shulchan Aruch rules that Rashi’s commentary may serve in its place, since Rashi explains the text; the Mishnah Berurah adds that a G-d-fearing person does both, Onkelos and Rashi. Reading Onkelos every week has a quiet reward of its own: after a year the Aramaic of the Targum stops being foreign, and a great deal of the Gemara’s language opens up with it.

Pesukim, not chapters

The custom is to read pasuk by pasuk, or at least parsha-section by section: each pasuk twice, then its Targum, rather than the whole parsha twice and then the whole Targum. That is how the text is arranged here. Chapter numbers appear only as markers, because the aliyot, not the chapters, are the natural divisions of the reading.

Double parshiyot and the festivals

In some years two parshiyot are leined together, such as Vayakhel-Pekudei or Nitzavim-Vayeilech, and the week’s Shnayim Mikra covers both; the combined pages are listed with the singles. On a Shabbat that falls on a festival, when a festival reading replaces the weekly parsha, the practice is to read the festival portion that week. The homepage always shows which parsha is current.

The haftarah

The haftarah is not part of the obligation, but many have the custom to read it as well, once, after finishing the parsha. The leining pages carry each parsha’s haftarah with its recording.