This week’s parasha is Chukat, and this year it is read independently although it is often read together with the following parasha of Balak. Why is it that in some years we read certain parashot on their own, and in other years they are linked to another? The simple answer is because of the dynamic Jewish calendar. A typical Jewish year has 50 weeks, while a leap year has an extra month of Adar resulting in 54 weeks. The Jewish calendar cycle runs 19 years, and there are 7 leap years within a 19-year cycle that have 54 weeks. Naturally then, the Torah needs to be divided up into 54 parashot so that there is a parasha for each Shabbat in a leap year. (In times past, some communities, especially in Israel, actually read the Torah once over a span of about three years, not one year, splitting the parashot into smaller segments.)

Practically speaking, there will always be some Shabbats that fall in the middle of a holiday, including Pesach and Sukkot, and sometimes others like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Plus, the final parasha of V’Zot haBerakhah is always read on Simchat Torah and not on its own Shabbat. So, in a typical year there are usually no more than 47 Shabbats with a parasha. That means you have to combine the remaining seven (of the 54 total) with another parasha.

When it comes to which parashot should be combined, there are differing traditions, especially among Yemenite and Syrian communities, but the general consensus today links the following seven pairs: Vayak’hel and Pekudei, Tazria and Metzora, Acharei and Kedoshim, Behar and Bechukotai, Chukat and Balak, Matot and Masei, Nitzavim and Vayelekh. Three of these pairs are linked because they are thematically similar, and the other four are linked simply because they are short and adjoining, making them easy to combine into one. (The latter is especially true for the two shortest parashot in the Torah, Nitzavim and Vayelekh with just 40 and 30 verses each, respectively.)

Which parashot are combined in which years also depends on the approaching holidays. For example, parashot are scheduled so that Bamidbar typically precedes Shavuot, while Nitzavim (with or without Vayelekh) typically precedes Rosh Hashanah. Of course, we must have the penultimate Ha’azinu before Sukkot so that the final V’Zot haBerakhah is left for Simchat Torah, and the first Beresheet for the first Shabbat of the year following the holidays.

To summarize, we have a maximum total of 54 parashot, but up to seven can be combined with others, depending on the type of year, to leave us with 47 parashot. But then, amazingly, the Zohar comes in and says the Torah actually has 50 parashot! Continue reading →