The Torah: The First Five Book Of Mosheh
BERESHITH - GENESIS
YAHWEH's SCRIPTURES
The reading of the Torah has always constituted the core of the synagogue ritual. For this ceremony, which was also in the past a form of study, only parchment Torah scrolls in good condition, and written in a special decorative Hebrew hand, may be used. Until the Middle Ages, only those synagogues which adhered to the Babylonian rite finished the reading of the Torah in one year; those adhering to the so-called Palestinian rite allowed a three-year period for its completion. The cycle is completed, and a new one begun, on the day following the conclusion of the Feast of Tabernacles, the day known as Simhath Torah, "the (Day of) Rejoicing in the Torah". *
* Encyclopedia Britannica