In the synagogue the Torah is read aloud in a fixed annual cycle of fifty-four weekly portions (parashiyot), one each Shabbat morning, with certain adjacent portions doubled in ordinary years so the sequence fits the calendar. Each portion is named for a distinctive word near its opening and is paired with a haftarah, a reading from the Prophets. The cycle closes and restarts on Simchat Torah. Vayikra ('And He called', Leviticus 1:1-5:26) opens the book of Leviticus with the system of offerings brought at the sanctuary, the burnt offering, the grain offering, the peace offering, and the offerings for sin and guilt, the ritual vocabulary of ancient Israelite worship.
Vayikra's opening word, giving the whole book of Leviticus its Hebrew title, is written in the Torah scroll with an unusually small final letter, aleph, a scribal tradition rabbinic commentary explains variously as expressing Moses' own humility in receiving the honour of being specifically called by God, or as distinguishing the verb 'called' from the similar word used of Balaam's more chance encounter with God in the book of Numbers, read as marking the difference between direct prophetic summons and incidental revelation. The sacrificial system detailed across the portion, burnt, grain, peace, sin and guilt offerings, each with its own procedure and permitted worshipper, functioned in the Temple period as the central vocabulary of Israelite worship, and its detailed regulation of unintentional sin (Leviticus 4) is read by commentators as reflecting a legal system concerned with restoring right relationship even where no conscious wrongdoing occurred.