Torah Trivia
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99 free Torah trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
48 free Torah trivia questions with answers, written for Hebrew school classrooms, synagogue quiz nights, bar and bat mitzvah parties and anyone brushing up on the Five Books of Moses. It covers what the word Torah means, the Hebrew names of Genesis through Deuteronomy and why they are called that, and the story arc from creation to Moses's death on Mount Nebo: Noah, Abraham, Jacob's wrestling match, the burning bush, the plagues, Sinai, the golden calf, the twelve spies, Balaam's donkey and the Shema. It also covers the Torah as an object and a practice: how a sofer writes a Sefer Torah on parchment, its 304,805 letters, what happens when a scribe misspells God's name, the yad, the ark and the parochet, the 54 weekly portions and the haftarah, Simchat Torah's seven circuits, the 613 mitzvot and the tzitzit gematria, and how the Torah reached the wider world through the Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch and Targum Onkelos. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia before publishing and each question links to its source. Difficulty runs from easy questions about the five books to hard ones on chapters, scholarship and scribal law.
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Q 01Which gift from their father makes Joseph's brothers jealous?
Coat
Coat: 'of many colours' is the King James wording, but the Hebrew is uncertain, and other versions say an ornamented tunic or a long robe with sleeves.
Q 02The Hebrew word Torah is usually translated as what?
Instruction
Instruction, or 'teaching', is the sense of a Hebrew root meaning to guide or teach; 'the Law' took hold after Greek-speaking Jews rendered Torah as nomos.
Q 03What does the Greek-derived word Pentateuch literally mean?
Five scrolls
Five scrolls: teuchos first meant gear or a vessel, and came to mean a book through the cases that held papyrus rolls.
Q 04Bereshit, the Hebrew name of Genesis, literally means what?
In the beginning
In the beginning is the traditional reading of Bereshit, but a modern Jewish Publication Society translation opens instead with 'When God began to create'.
Q 05What is the Hebrew name of Leviticus, meaning 'And He called'?
Vayikra
Vayikra, 'And He called', was traditionally the first book young children studied since, a midrash says, the pure should study what is pure.
Q 06Bamidbar, the Hebrew name for the fourth book, means what?
In the desert
In the desert (or wilderness) is the sense of Bamidbar, taken from the book's opening verse; the English name Numbers refers to its two censuses.
Q 07Devarim, the Hebrew name for Deuteronomy, means what?
Words
Words, from the opening 'These are the words'; the Greek name Deuteronomy, 'second law', grew instead out of a phrase in Deuteronomy 17:18.
Q 08What is a Chumash?
The Torah in bound book form
The Torah in bound book form: it prints the vowels and chant marks a Torah scroll leaves out, making it the copy people study from.
Q 09In Genesis, which bird returns to Noah carrying an olive leaf?
A dove
A dove: Noah had first sent out a raven, which kept flying to and fro until the waters dried up.
Q 10Rabbinic tradition says the Oral Law was first written down in which work, edited by Judah ha-Nasi?
The Mishnah
The Mishnah: tradition says Judah ha-Nasi compiled it around 200 CE because he feared persecution would make the oral teachings be forgotten.
Q 11Jewish tradition counts 613 commandments in the Torah; what is each called?
Mitzvah
Mitzvah: at 13 a Jewish boy becomes a bar mitzvah, literally a 'son of the commandment', and is held responsible for keeping them.
Q 12Which medieval scholar listed the Torah's 613 commandments in his Book of Commandments?
Maimonides
Maimonides: Nachmanides later attacked parts of the list in a critical commentary, replacing some of its commandments with others.
Q 13By gematria, tzitzit adds up to 600; what brings it to 613?
Eight threads and five knots
Eight threads and five knots: they lift tzitzit, worth 600 in its later spelling, to 613, and Numbers 15:39 ties the fringes to remembering every commandment.
Q 21What is the cabinet that houses the Torah scrolls in a synagogue called?
The ark
The ark sits in the wall facing Jerusalem, so a congregation turned toward it in prayer is also facing the city.
Q 22What is the ornate curtain that hangs before the doors of the Torah cabinet called?
The parochet
The parochet shares its Hebrew name with the curtain that screened off the Holy of Holies, and on Tisha B'Av many synagogues remove it or draw it aside.
Q 23The Torah is split into 54 weekly reading sections; what is each one called?
Parashah
Parashah: in years with too few available weeks, some are read in pairs, such as Tazria with Metzora.
Q 14Roughly how many letters does a handwritten Torah scroll contain?
300,000
300,000: a mistake in even one of those letters can make the whole scroll invalid for use.
Q 15What is a scribe who writes a Torah scroll called?
A sofer
A sofer: the Talmud says the first scribes were called soferim, 'counters', because they counted every letter in the Torah.
Q 16On what material is a Sefer Torah written?
Parchment from kosher animals
Parchment from kosher animals: Jewish law bars the hides of unclean animals, and a scroll written on anything else is invalid for public reading.
Q 17What colour must the ink of a Torah scroll be?
Black
Black: even God's names may not be written in gold, and a scroll that has them in gold must be stored away unused.
Q 18Roughly how long can it take a scribe to complete a Torah scroll?
About a year and a half
About a year and a half: the scribe must copy every letter by hand from a written text, never from memory.
Q 19What is the pointer used to follow the text during a Torah reading called?
A yad
A yad: the same Hebrew word also means a memorial, which is why Israel's Holocaust memorial is called Yad Vashem.
Q 20Why is a pointer used rather than a finger during Torah reading?
So the scroll itself is not touched
So the scroll itself is not touched: the Talmud says the Sages made scrolls defile the hands after priests stored food beside them and mice gnawed the scrolls.
Q 24In Exodus, which body of water parts so the Israelites can cross on dry ground?
The Red Sea
The Red Sea is the traditional rendering, but the Hebrew Yam Suph is more literally the 'Sea of Reeds', as the Jewish Publication Society translates it.
Q 25What is the reading from the Prophets that follows the Torah portion on Sabbath mornings called?
The haftarah
The haftarah's origin is unknown; one theory says it began as a rebuke to the Samaritans, who rejected the books of the Prophets.
Q 26On which days of the week, besides the Sabbath, is the Torah read publicly in synagogue?
Monday and Thursday
Monday and Thursday: the Talmud says the practice predates Ezra, set in Moses' time so that no three days would pass without Torah.
Q 27In Israel, Simchat Torah falls on the same day as which festival?
Shemini Atzeret
Shemini Atzeret: outside Israel that festival lasts two days, so the Simchat Torah celebrations move to the second day.
Q 28On Simchat Torah, what are the circuits congregants make while dancing with the Torah scrolls called?
Hakafot
Hakafot: congregants also make these circuits around the bimah on Sukkot, holding the four species instead of carrying scrolls.
Q 29In Hatan Torah, the Simchat Torah honour of reading the final portion, what does Hatan mean?
Groom
Groom: once the Hatan Torah finishes Deuteronomy, a second honoree, the Hatan Bereshit, reads from Genesis.
Q 30When Moses comes down Sinai and finds the people worshipping an idol, what does he do with the tablets?
He smashes them
He smashes them: God then has him cut two new stone tablets and writes the same words on them again.