TORAH TRIVIA
1. Who is the only person in Tanakh
who was given his name by both parents?
2. Find two psukim in the Torah
in which the same shoresh is employed in four
consecutive words.
3. Name the four people in Tanakh
referred to as "Tzaddik."
4. Name the ten prophets in Tanakh
referred to as "Ish (Ha)Elokim."
5. Name two people in the Tanakh
who were named before they were born.
6. Where in the Torah are there six consecutive words
that begin with aleph?
7. What is the only sedra in the
Torah that ends with aleph?
8. Whose is the only birthday party mentioned in the
Torah?
9. On what day do we read fewer than ten psukim from the Torah?
10. Which sedrot have the most
and fewest psukim?
11. Name the sedrot in the
Torah after
12. What are the only days when we read from three Sifrei Torah?
13. When is it possible to read from four consecutive parshiot, in whole or in part, on the same day?
14. What three sedrot may
coincide with Shabbat HaGadol?
15. What books in Neviim have
the most and the fewest chapters (counting
16. On what Shabbat do we not read from the next week's parsha?
17. What is the only fast day on which we do not read
18. When is it possible to read the Torah on five
consecutive days without saying Hallel on any of
those days?
19. In which sedra are there
two consecutive three-word psukim? In
which other sedra are there two (though
non-consecutive) three-word psukim? (Hint:
they share two of the three words.) Which four consecutive sedrot
each contain a three-word pasuk? (Hint: they do not
include the two previous answers.) Finally, can you find the remaining six
three-word psukim in the Torah? (Hint: the grand
total of fourteen is divided into five, three, two, two, and two in the five sfarim, in that order.)
20. Only one of the fourteen three-word psukim in the Torah contains exactly one ta'am before the sof
pasuk. Which one? Now find a four-word pasuk that also contains only one ta'am
before the sof pasuk.
21. Excluding three-word psukim,
what is the only pasuk in Tanakh
that begins and ends with the same three words?
22. What word in the Torah has the highest gematria? (Hint #1: the sum is 1500. Hint #2: it has five
letters. Hint #3: it is a verb in binyan hitpael.)
23. What is the longest word in the Torah? (Hint: it is
ten letters long.) What is the longest word in Tanakh?
24. Find three different psukim
in the Torah that each contain five consecutive
two-letter words.
25. Name the people in the Torah who are explictly given new names (not who have multiple names).
Who gives each one the new name?
26. Name the only two parshiot
that are always read on the first Shabbat following a specific holiday or fast
day.
27. Which sedrot do not have haftarot to which they have a thematic connection?
28. Which sedrot are known by
names that do not exactly match a word in that sedra?
(The absence of a dagesh doesn't count.)
29. Which parsha is known by a
name that does not occur in that parsha? (Hint: the
name is a plural noun.)
30. Which five parshiot contain
the ta'am hamikra called mercha kefula? Which haftara contains it?
31. Name all the people in the Torah who are explicitly
said to have had a dream [chalom] at a particular
time.
32. Name all the mitzvot given
in
33. Which sedra contains the
most mitzvot?
34. Which sedra contains the
most instances of the pasuk "
35. Name the only two sedrot
that have consecutive identical words in the first pasuk.
36. Name the six people whose name occurs consecutively
(i.e., in consecutive words) in the Torah. For which of these individuals does
this occur twice?
37. Find the only pasuk in the
Torah that contains two different pairs of consecutive identical words.
38. What haftarot have the most
and fewest psukim?
39. What do Tisha b'Av, Shabbat Rosh Chodesh,
Shabbat HaGadol, and Shabbat Chol
Hamoed Sukkot (or
40. What identical names are used for two different
people in the Torah? (Hint: there are at least eighteen.)
41. Name all the women mentioned distinctly by name in
the Torah after
42. Name the seven neviot in Tanakh, as identified in the Gemara.
43. Who in the Torah married his uncle's sister-in-law
(or his aunt's sister)?
44. Which of the Ushpizin of Sukkot lived the longest?
45. When is it possible to end three consecutive aliyot with the same last two words (without making extra aliyot)?
46. Of the sedrot that are
named after a person, which one of those names appears only once in that sedra? Which one does not appear in any other sedra? Which one appears in only one other sedra? Which one is the grandfather of one of the previous
answers? Which one is also the name of someone else in the Torah?
47. Name the two parshiot from
which we read part or all of six different aliyot
during the course of the year (other than on that sedra's
regular shabbat).
48. When is the Torah read publicly on eleven consecutive
days?
49. From what parsha, and under
what circumstances, do we read eight times over the course of three weeks?
50. What is the highest number of psukim
that can be read in one Torah reading, and when does this occur?
51. What pasuk is read the most
times from the Torah in the course of a year?
52. When is it possible for a special Torah reading to
replace the regular Torah reading from the same parasha?
53. Which of the
54. What is the only haftarah
that ends where it began -- i.e., in which the haftarah
skips backward so that the last pasuk of the haftarah is the pasuk in Navi that immediately precedes the first pasuk of the haftarah?
55. Where and when is it possible to read the same haftarah two weeks in a row? (Traveling from
56. Which haftarot may be read
more than once a year (Ashkenazim and Sefardim only)?
57. Find a pasuk in the Torah
that supports the notion that Jews should eat Chinese food (and davka not Japanese food).