Bereshit is read on the first Shabbat after Simchat Torah, so that the community that has just finished the Torah begins it again at once, expressing the idea of unending study. Its opening word gives the book of Genesis its Hebrew name, Bereshit. Traditional Judaism holds the Torah to be a single revelation given through Moses at Sinai; modern historical-critical scholarship, following the Documentary Hypothesis and its successors, instead analyses the text as woven from earlier sources edited over centuries. The two readings coexist in contemporary study. The two creation accounts of chapters 1 and 2, one ordered and cosmic, one intimate and earthy, have been read harmonistically by traditional commentators and as distinct sources by critical scholars.
Because Bereshit opens the annual cycle immediately after Simchat Torah closes it, the portion carries a liturgical weight beyond its content: the custom of calling every eligible male to the Torah on that day, so that no one present goes without an aliyah, means Bereshit is read start to finish with unusually broad congregational participation. Its Hebrew title gives the entire book of Genesis its Hebrew name, a naming convention, first significant word rather than descriptive title, that holds across the whole Torah and distinguishes Jewish usage from the Greek-derived English book names. The portion's genealogy from Adam to Noah, often skipped over in general reading, is treated in rabbinic literature as doing real narrative work: the recorded lifespans, sharply higher than anything in later biblical genealogies, are read by traditional commentators as evidence of a world not yet worn down by the moral decay the flood was sent to answer, a decline modern scholars instead read as a feature borrowed from the long royal lifespans of older Mesopotamian king lists.