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. Beshalach ('When he let go', Exodus 13:17-17:16) recounts the crossing of the Sea of Reeds and the drowning of Pharaoh's army, followed by the Song of the Sea (Shirat HaYam), the giving of the manna and the quail, water drawn from the rock, and the battle with Amalek. Its Shabbat is called Shabbat Shirah, the Sabbath of Song.
The splitting of the Sea of Reeds, with the waters described as forming 'a wall to them on their right hand and on their left' (Exodus 14:22), is read by rabbinic commentary alongside a tradition, preserved in the midrash, that the sea did not part until Nahshon, a leader of the tribe of Judah, walked forward into the water up to his neck, a reading later Jewish ethical teaching cites as an example of decisive faith preceding, rather than following, divine intervention. The Song of the Sea (Exodus 15), sung by Moses and the Israelites and echoed by Miriam and the women with timbrels, is written in the Torah scroll itself in a distinctive brick-like layout of separated half-lines, one of the few passages accorded special scribal formatting, and its recitation forms part of the daily morning liturgy in addition to its annual reading on Shabbat Shirah.