Dear friends,
This is an updated version of an article I wrote a few years ago. Thanks to my readers comments, there is a lot of new information.
Enjoy,
Yitzi
Since Pesach Israel has been one parsha ahead. This means that if you are traveling to Israel, you will miss a parsha.
There are two cases where this can happen. The first is Pesach. Outside the Holy Land we are obligated to celebrate an eighth day, in Israel Pesach is seven days. When the eighth day falls on Shabbos, in Israel that Shabbos is not Pesach anymore, so they read the next parsha. Outside Israel it's still Pesach and the Torah reading is on the holiday theme. It is only the next week that the next parsha is read. And so the parsha in Israel is one week ahead.
The same thing happens when Shavuoth falls on Erev Shabbos (Friday). Outside of Israel we celebrate Shavuoth two days, in Israel it is only one day. The same scenario will play out, while outside of Israel we will be celebrating Shabbos as the second day of Shavuoth, in Israel it will be a regular Shabbos and they will be reading the next parsha. Outside of Israel we will be reading the holiday Torah reading and only resume the parsha on the next Shabbos. So we are off by one parsha. (This will happen next year 5780.)
Sometimes after Pesach it goes on for five weeks, aligning two weeks before Shavuoth with parshas Behar-Bechukosai. Outside of Israel they are together, inside Israel they are separate and so, we are realigned. Other times it can go on for about four months, until parshas Matos-Maasei are combined outside of Israel, while in Israel they remain separated, and we are back on the same track.
After Shavuoth it always realigns with parshas Chukas-Balak.
Between Pesach and Matos-Maasei there are, depending on the year, three or four double parshas. Between Pesach and Shavuoth there can be as many as three, which could put us on the same track as early as the Shabbos following Pesach. So, why do we wait until Behar-Bechukosai (5 weeks) or Matos-Maasei (4 months), to become realigned?
The first thing to understand is that the schedule of the parshas was established outside of the land of Israel. At a time, when in Israel, the Jewish community was small and less educated, and they would read the Torah, completing it over a three year cycle.
Later, when Israel, once again became a center of Torah, it adopted the system from outside the Land. Every few years, because of the extra Shabbos, Israel is forced to go on to a different track, while outside of Israel, they remain on the regular track.
Why were these parshas, outside the Land, set up this way?
The answer is, that when setting up the parsha system, the rule is that the first parshas to be doubled up are the last parshas of a chumash, therefore Behar-Bechukosai and Matos-Maasei will be the first to be read together in their respective chumash. They also wanted that parshas Pinchas, whenever possible, should be read during the Three Weeks, between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av (Tisha B'Av). Which is the saddest time on the Jewish calendar. Pinchas has the holiday sacrifice readings, which are joyous and sweetens the harshness of the time. It was also established that parshas Vaeschanan is always read the Shabbos after Tisha B'Av. It is Shabbos Nachamu, the first Haftora of consolation after Tisha B'Av.
They also established, that parshas Bechukosai, which has the curses, be read before Shavuoth, with at least one parsha, parshas Bamidbar, buffering between the curses and Shavuoth. This can cause the tracks to align earlier.
Sometimes there is no choice but to have parshas Naso also before Shavuoth, however, whenever possible, Nasso is after Shavuoth, being that they want the connection between the curses of parshas Bechukosai and Shavuoth to be recognized and if you have two parshas in between, it is not so recognizable.
It turns out that in a Jewish leap year, when there is an extra month of Adar added to the calendar, the tracks realign with parshas Matos-Maasei, since there are four extra weeks, and most of the double parshas have to be split up and being that outside of Israel we wait until Matos-Maasei to have a double parsha, there is no choice but to realign then.
However in a regular year, they realign with parshas Behar-Bechukosai although in many years there is the possibility of realigning earlier, because it is a long standing tradition to realign with parshas Behar-Bechukosai and they don't want to break from tradition.
When Moshiach comes, The Three Weeks will become a happy time, and parshas Pinchas will be unnecessary to sweeten the time. Perhaps then we will be able to align the tracks earlier, which won't matter much, because we will all be living in Israel.
(All of the information above, was gleaned from questions I posed to rabbis who visited me. As I am limited to the books that I have on my eye gaze computer. Therefore, I request, that if you have more information on the subject, or if there are inaccuracies in what I wrote, please share it in the comments section below.)
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Thank you Dovid Hurwitz, Mendy Bortonk and DH for your incites.
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