Chumash (Judaism)

Chumash (also Ḥumash;

The word comes from the Hebrew word for five, ḥamesh (חמש). A more formal term is Ḥamishah Ḥumshei Torah, "five fifths of Torah". It is also known by the Latinised Greek term Pentateuch in common printed editions.^[1]

Etymology

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The word ḥumesh is a standard Ashkenazic vowel shift of ḥomesh, meaning "one-fifth", alluding to any one of the five books; by synecdoche, it came to mean the five fifths of the Torah. The Modern Israeli Hebrew pronunciation ḥumash is an erroneous reconstruction based on the assumption that the Ashkenazic accent, which is almost uniformly penultimately stressed, had also changed the stress of the word. In fact, ḥumesh preserves the original stress pattern and both pronunciations contain a shifted first vowel.

In early scribal practice, there was a distinction between a

In the legal codes, such as Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, it is laid down that any copy of the Pentateuch which does not comply with the strict rules for a Sefer Torah, for example, because it is not a parchment scroll or contains vowel signs, has only the same sanctity as a copy of an individual book (ḥomesh). In this way, the word ḥomesh (or ḥumash) came to have the extended sense of any copy of the Pentateuch other than a Sefer Torah.^[2]

Usage

The word ḥumash generally only refers to "book" bound editions of the Pentateuch, whereas the "scroll" form is called a sefer Torah ("book [of the] Torah").

In modern Jewish practice:

• A printed ḥumash usually sets out the Hebrew text of the Torah with
  haftarah for each portion and, often, translations and notes.^[3]
• A ḥumash-Rashi also contains the Targum Onkelos and the commentary of Rashi, and may or may not have a vernacular translation of the text.
• A
  haftarot and the Five Megillot. It exists as an aid for soferim
  (Torah scribes) and for those preparing to read from the sefer Torah in the synagogue.
• A multi-volume set in Hebrew only, often but not always including the entire
  Tanakh with masoretic notes (sometimes), Targumim and several classical commentaries, is referred to as Mikraot Gedolot
  ("Great Scriptures").

• The Pentateuch and Haftorahs, London 1937, known as the "Hertz Chumash", containing the commentary of former British Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz
• Soncino Books of the Bible series) ed. Abraham Cohen, containing notes summarizing the traditional commentaries (Mikraot Gedolot
  ).
• Torah and Haftarot, translation by
  ISBN 0-88484-456-0
  )
• ISBN 0-8276-0712-1): associated with Conservative
  movement
• Gutnik Chumash with Onkelos, Rashi and commentaries of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
• The Torah: A Modern Commentary, Revised Edition. W. Gunther Plaut, ed. New York: Union for Reform Judaism, 2006: associated with American Reform movement
• The Torah: A Women's Commentary, edited by Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Andrea L. Weiss, Union for Reform Judaism/Women of Reform Judaism, 2008