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Besides for the reading of the Torah portion on Shabbat morning, we also read from the Sefer Torah during the afternoon prayer (Mincha) of Shabbat, as well as Monday and Thursday mornings.
What do we read?
The portion of the upcoming Shabbat. We take the beginning of the Torah portion (usually the first Aliyah, the part that will be read first during the reading of Shabbat) and we divide it into three parts, each one of them constituting one Aliyah.
Why do we read the Torah on Mondays, Thursdays, and Shabbat at Mincha?
The Gemara (Baba Kamma 82a) says that Moshe established the custom that the Jews should read the Torah three days a week, so that they would never go three days without hearing it read publicly.
The Talmudic sages find this alluded to in Exodus (15:22-27), where we read that our ancestors traveled for three days and thirsted for water—which allegorically also refers to the Torah. They had become spiritually ill after not studying Torah. In response, Moses and the prophets of his generation decided that three days should never pass without a public Torah reading. Thus, we read the Torah on Shabbat, then skip a day and read it on Monday, then skip two days and read it again on Thursday—then two days later we are back at Shabbat.
Another tradition in the Talmud says that it is Ezra the Scribe, who was the spiritual leader of the Jews during the construction of the 2nd Temple, who instituted the reading of the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays so that three days shall not pass without the Jewish people learning (hearing) the Torah, including the simple people who work all day and not have time (or can’t) learn Torah on their own. The market days when the villagers would go to the big city were set on Monday and Thursday because of the Torah reading, and other public functions were set already on those days.
During those years, there were people going around to the villages to sell their merchandise and did not have during the whole week the opportunity to pray with a Minyan and thus, did not hear the Torah on Monday or Thursday. Thus, Ezra instituted the reading of the Torah a second time during Shabbat, so that they should learn something more.
The Talmud reconciles these two traditions by explaining that they refer to different stages in the evolution of this tradition. In Moses' times only three verses were read (corresponding to the three general groups within the Jewish community: Kohen, Levi, and Yisrael) on the weekdays. Ezra and associates lengthened this quota to a minimum of 10 verses (divided into three Aliyot).
We will further explain who gets an Aliyah and why the Kohen always gets the first one next week.
Shabbat Shalom,
Arie from the Yeshiva
