Nothing got garbled; it was just written in shorthand – 2M and 1T = two times Mikra and one Targum.

Fine, but I’d appreciate it if people wouldn’t send me riddles here. Pardon me, but I don’t have time to work on decoding them.
It is commonly accepted that this is Jewish law, but I truly am not at all sure about that.

In my humble opinion, shnayim mikra ve-echad targum is part of the enactment of the public Torah reading (“A person should always complete his portions together with the congregation”). It is public Torah study. And the whole enactment is an obligation that is of course part of the commandment of Torah study.

The medieval authorities, for the most part, used language of obligation.
For example, Maimonides: “Even though a person hears the entire Torah every Sabbath in public, he is obligated to read for himself each and every week the portion of that Sabbath, two times Mikra and one Targum.”
The solitary view of the Ra'avan is that the law of shnayim mikra ve-echad targum applies to someone who has no quorum with which to read on the Sabbath.

Indeed, I wrote that it is commonly thought to be Jewish law.

Rabbi,
what makes the Rabbi uncertain about the matter of shnayim mikra ve-echad targum?
Is public Torah reading also not Jewish law (and is it preferable nowadays to study Talmud instead)?

I thought about it and a few ideas occurred to me:
Seemingly, two times Mikra and one Targum is basically just an extension of the public Torah reading. A synagogue is called a “miniature sanctuary” because it fulfills two definitions (functions) of the Temple: a public house of prayer and a house of testimony to the revelation of the Master of the World (the Tablets of Testimony, the Torah scroll). Torah reading has the status of testimony to revelation for the community. Therefore it is impossible to suffice with the Oral Torah (Talmud or Jewish law); one must read the original source itself. The Rabbi gave two definitions for Torah study: song and study. But perhaps one can give a third definition—testimony. The Torah testifies to its Giver and therefore turns the synagogue into a place of prayer. Two times Mikra and one Targum is a kind of goal-verification on the part of the Sages, making sure that we really go over the text and understand it, and therefore it is not merely a nice practice but Jewish law.

First of all—Y.D., you should know that the Rabbi generally thinks there is no need to study Torah nowadays. This “goal-verification” could have been halakhically satisfied by Torah reading without the Targum. Why is Targum needed? Nowadays it is really unnecessary. Better to invest that time in deepening one’s knowledge of the Hebrew language.

Moshe,
pardon me, but apparently you love the Rabbi so much that you just can’t stop following him. In the end you’ll still turn into Rav Kahana and Rav in Berakhot 62a.

Y.D., the style of the Talmud’s wording, which did not use language of obligation but rather “A person should always complete his portions,” leaves room to wonder whether this is indeed an obligation, since the word “always” appears in many places as an introduction to good advice: “A commoner’s blessing should never be light in your eyes,” “A person should always live in the place of his rabbi,” “A person should always strive to greet kings,” “A person should always be shrewd in fear,” “Every person should always present themselves as Torah scholars,” “A person should never take leave of his fellow not amid ordinary conversation… but rather amid a matter of Jewish law,” and so on and so forth.
And so here too there would have been room to say that, were it not for the tradition of the medieval authorities, who see this as a full obligation.

D.G.,
that’s what I thought, but I wanted the Rabbi to confirm the reasoning. I also wanted to see what he would say about the testimonial aspect of Torah reading.

In cases in the Talmud where it says “always,” sometimes it seems that the amoraim really do understand it as an obligation (if not an actual commandment, then at least something it is obvious one should do and that everyone does). Sometimes they even raise objections from it against things that happened in practice. The starkest example is honoring kings: it sounds like a recommendation (“in the messianic era we’ll see the difference between him and them.” Well, fine…) but it turns out that it overrides rabbinic prohibitions.

Indeed, the language of the Talmud sounds like a recommendation or an idea, not a definitive Jewish law.
As for testimony, that is certainly possible, although it is more common to see Torah reading as a miniature reenactment of the giving of the Torah. Either way, that is not a relevant argument in the question of whether this is Jewish law or a recommendation.

I just saw that the Rabbi was asked on the site about the obligation of two times Mikra and one Targum—
the Rabbi wrote that it seems more like a recommendation.

Let me reinforce the Rabbi’s words from the following sources—
Shibbolei HaLeket wrote (section on Sabbath, sec. 75): “It is fitting for every person to arrange his portions…”
And in the responsa of the Ra'avan (sec. 88) he wrote that the words of the Sages refer to “an individual living in a city who has no ten to read the Torah.”
And the language of the Tur is: “One must be careful to complete the portion,” and it does not use language of obligation.

Many thanks. The Ra'avan was mentioned on the site. All these follow the language of the Talmud, from which it already emerges that there is no absolute obligation here. But among the halakhic decisors it seems they simply assumed that it is an obligation, and this requires further examination.

By the way, I read on the Rabbi’s site a number of things about prayer and its length, and I identify with that very, very strongly.

On my site (a link to the site is attached: http://www.dnoam.022.co.il/BRPortal/br/P100.jsp) in the prayer category – “The Prayerbook of Individuals” – there is a prayerbook I edited, shortened according to the rite of the Geonim – it cuts out the sacrificial passages, the Song at the Sea, the confession, supplication prayers, and the prayer ends with “There is none like our God.”

Just so you know, I myself pray according to this text, usually.

Indeed, I called the prayerbook “The Prayerbook of Individuals” so as not to stir up an uproar, but according to Maimonides’ words in his responsa, where he says that lengthy prayer is difficult for the elderly and the sick, it would have been fitting to call this prayerbook “The Prayerbook of the Many,” and to turn the prayerbook currently used in synagogues into the prayerbook of individuals.

Absolutely wonderful. Fortunate are you for taking the trouble to arrange and organize these things, with the best of your effort, for the benefit of the public. Blessed is He who speaks and acts.
I skimmed through its various sections quickly and did not examine them closely. But off the cuff, it seems to me that I would remove a few more psalms from Pesukei DeZimra.

Thank you.

A. Indeed, I should have shortened Pesukei DeZimra and set it up according to Rashi’s opinion (Sabbath 118b, s.v. Pesukei DeZimra), who wrote that this refers to two psalms (148 and 150). Apparently I did not actually shorten it because I subordinated myself to the rite of the Geonim.
B. I mistakenly wrote that I ended the morning prayer in the prayerbook with “There is none like our God,” but that is not so—I ended with “And a redeemer shall come to Zion” (and its text too was shortened).
C. The blessing on the moon was reduced almost to the minimum, as were the bedtime Shema and Grace after Meals.
D. Our innovation here was that we brought, in practice, a shortened Amidah of 18 blessings, as well as the abbreviated “Havinenu” prayer.

D,
the blessing “Former of the luminaries” in your prayerbook is longer than the version in Rav Saadia Gaon’s prayerbook.

Simply speaking, the sacrificial passages are obligatory because of “so will we render the bulls of our lips.” (And that is also the Rabbi’s view here
https://mikyab.net/Responsa/Parts of the prayer service that are not obligatory/

Forgive me, but on what basis are you arranging and editing prayerbooks?

Yitzhak—“so will we render the bulls of our lips” does not speak about obligatory sacrifices at all; on the contrary—it speaks about freewill and thanksgiving offerings that we vowed to offer at a certain time. And the proof is that it says “render,” because when a person vows he is obligated to pay, as the wise man said: “Better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay.” Check it and see!