Occasionally – very occasionally – the Torah-readings in Israel are one week ahead of those in the exile; there are only two circumstances which can cause this. The last time this happened was last year, for the fifteen Shabbatot 22nd Nissan to 2nd Av 5782 (23rd April to 30th July 2022):
Last year Pesach began on Shabbat, so the seventh and final day in Israel was Friday 22nd Nissan (23rd April), and the next day, Shabbat, communities in Israel continued with the weekly Torah-reading with Parashat Acharei Mot.
However communities in exile celebrate the extra day of Pesach (Yom Tov Sheini shel galuyot), so on that same Shabbat they read the Torah-reading for eighth day of Pesach (Deuteronomy 14:22-16:17).
The following Shabbat, 29th Nissan (30th April), communities in Israel continued with Parashat Kedoshim, while communities in exile were up to Parashat Acharei Mot.
And so we continued, Torah-readings for Israel and exile out of synch for almost three-and-a-half months, until Shabbat 2nd Av (30th July), when communities in Israel read Parashat Mas’ei, and communities in exile caught up by reading the double Parashah Mattot-Mas’ei.
This year it happened again, this time because of the extra day of Shavuot in the exile:
Shavuot fell on Friday 6th Sivan (26th May); the next day, Shabbat, Jewish communities in Israel resumed the annual cycle of weekly Torah-readings with Parashat Nasso, while the countries of exile celebrated the second day of Shavuot, the extra day added in exile, and they read Deuteronomy 14:22-16:17, the Festival Reading.
A week later, Shabbat 14th Sivan (3rd June), communities in exile read Parashat Nasso, while on the same Shabbat communities in Israel read Parashat Beha’alot’cha.
And so we continued, Israel one week ahead of the exile, Shabbat-by-Shabbat. This coming Shabbat we in Israel will read Parashat Balak, and the exile will catch up with Israel by reading the double parashah Chukkat-Balak.
So this Shabbat, we in Israel will welcome our brothers in exile back to being synchronised with us in the Torah-reading cycle.
Is there any significance in this Shabbat being the one in which we are reunited?
– We begin by noting that there are seven parashot which can be doubled when necessary: Vayak’hel-Pekudey (concluding the Book of Exodus); Tazria-Metzora, Acharei Mot-Kedoshim, and Behar-Bechukkotay (in Leviticus); Chukkat-Balak and Mattot-Mas’ei in Numbers; and Nitzavim-Vayeilech in Deuteronomy.
Six of these can happen both in Israel and in exile, and are necessary for calibrating the Torah-reading to fit the year.
Almost all years have at least one double parashah, and there are only two possibilities for a year to contain no double parashot: The first is a leap year which begins on a Monday (this applies in Israel: in exile such a year will contain the double parashah Mattot-Mas’ei), and the second is a leap year which begins on a Thursday and in which both Marcheshvan and Kislev have 29 days. [1]
The double parashah which communities in exile will read this week, Chukkat-Balak, can happen only in exile, never in Israel; and it happens as a result of Shavuot falling on Friday and Shabbat, and is there in order to bring the Torah-reading in exile back into step with Israel.
Why our Sages decide to combine specifically these two parashot?
Dry halakhic considerations aside, I suggest: –
The only two circumstances which can cause the disparity between Torah-readings in Israel and the exile are when Pesach begins on Shabbat (as happened last year), and when Shavuot falls on Friday (as happened this year).
Shavuot celebrates and recalls G-d’s most magnificent Revelation in history – the Giving of the Torah. It was a time when the entire Jewish nation was united as never before or since.
The Torah records the events with the words:
וַיִּסְעוּ מֵרְפִידִים וַיָּבֹאוּ מִדְבַּר סִינַי וַיַּחֲנוּ בַּמִּדְבָּר וַיִּחַן שָׁם יִשְׂרָאֵל נֶגֶד הָהָר
“They [plural] travelled from Rephidim, and they [plural] came to the Sinai Desert, and they [plural] encamped in the desert – and there Israel encamped [singular] facing the Mountain” (Exodus 19:2).
All these verbs are in the plural (וַיִּסְעוּ...וַיָּבֹאוּ...וַיַּחֲנוּ, “they travelled…they came…they encamped”). But when Israel encamped facing Mount Sinai, the verb is in the singular: וַיִּחַן, literally “he encamped”.
Hence in several places the Midrash expounds:
“When they travelled they quarrelled; when they encamped they quarrelled; when they all came before Mount Sinai, they all became one single united camp… G-d said: Behold! – this is the time for Me to give the Torah to My children” (Vayikra Rabbah 9:9; Eichah Rabbah, Proems; Mechilta de-Rabbi Shimon bar Yochay 19:2 et al.).
And Rashi says, tersely and simply and sweetly, “‘Israel encamped’ – like one man with one heart”.
This was the precondition for the Revelation at Mount Sinai: a national unity which brought us to a spiritual pinnacle which we would never achieve again.
Yet it is precisely the celebration of this event – Shavuot – that can throw Jews in Israel and in the exile out of unity of Torah-reading for five Shabbattot!
The Book of Numbers bridges between the generation of slaves who left Egypt and who died in exile in the Sinai Desert, and the generation who inherited the Land of Israel. It begins with the census in the desert a year and a month after the Exodus, and concludes with the Children of Israel encamped on the east bank of the River Jordan, in the Plains of Moab, facing Jericho.
And the pivot is Parashat Chukkat, which opens in the second year of the desert wandering, with the final mitzvah that G-d gave that generation – the Red Cow – and concludes in the final year, with the Children of Israel coming to the Zin Desert and beginning their final approach to the Land of Israel.
That is to say, Parashat Chukkat prepares us for tikkun olam, rectifying the world, by bringing the Children of Israel into the Land of Israel.
It is in Parashat Chukkat that the Jewish nation first fights for its Land and its independence, confronting and defeating the Canaanite king of Arad (Numbers 21:1-3), the Amorites (21:21-30), Jazer (21:32), and Bashan (21:33-35).
A world in which Jews are in exile is a damaged world, while a world in which Jews are sovereign in their own Land is a rectified world.
So Parashat Chukkat prepares us for the transition from the damaged world to the rectified world; which prepares us, in the words of the Aleynu prayer,לְתַקֵּן עֲוֹלָם בְּמַלְכוּת שַׁדַּי, “to rectify the world through the Almighty’s sovereignty”
Ever since the yearly cycle of Torah readings was standardised towards the end of the Second Temple era, and the fixed calendar as calculated by Hillel II (Hillel ben Yehudah, Nasi or head of the Sanhedrin) was adopted in 4119 (359 C.E.), Shabbat Parashat Balak (or Chukat-Balak) usually falls on the Shabbat immediately before the Three Weeks (occasionally the Shabbat a week before) – the time when we mourn the destruction of our Holy Temples, when we mourn the loss of our sovereignty in our Land.
This year, the 17th of Tammuz, beginning the Three Weeks of mourning, falls on Thursday (6th July).
By calibrating the annual Torah-reading cycle thus, our Sages determined that the Torah would prepare us for our approach to the Three Weeks – the very epitome of a damaged world, a destroyed world, a ruined world; but also the period which is destined one day to be day of eternal redemption, of absolute rectification.
We could only receive the Torah when we stood unified, “like one man with one heart”. And we will only rectify the world through the Almighty’s sovereignty when we again stand unified “like one man with one heart”.
The last few months in Israel have been a difficult and challenging time, with an embittered, frustrated, and alienated opposition seemingly implacably hostile to the very State. Yet when military conflict erupted less than a month ago, on Lag ba-Omer (9th May), the entire nation demonstrated an amazing and inspiring unity: within hours, we forgot our differences.
Soldiers who just the previous day were refusing to report for duty, suddenly volunteered for front-line duty, defending the people and the Land with their very lives if necessary.
The last time that we in Israel and Jews in exile read the same Torah-reading was on [the first day of] Shavuot. This Shabbat, we demonstrate our innate unity by bringing the Torah-readings of Israel and exile back into harmony.
This is the time, as we head for the 17th of Tammuz and the Three Weeks, for those of us in Israel to tell our brothers who are still in exile: Welcome back!
And particularly at this season of the year, as we mourn the destruction that was, we yearn to repair our broken nation and broken world by welcoming you all back to our resurrected homeland, the Land of Israel.
We yearn to welcome every Jew back to Israel.
Endnotes
[1] For an excellent and extremely detailed analysis and explanation of which parashot are doubled under what circumstances, I refer the interested reader to http://www.hakirah.org/vol%202%20epstein.pdf.