Why are our Torah portions occasionally different from the orthodox?

 Dear Rabbi,

I have long been confused as to why, on some Shabbatot, the parsha listed for progressive services differs from that listed by orthodox.  As it happens, Saturday 18th April which is when John and I next lead services, is one of those.  According to the progressive listing I have (http://news.reformjudaism.org.uk/torah-readings.html ), the possible parsha readings for that week are from Tazria-M’tzora but the Chabad web site lists that Shabbat as Sh’mini.

Can you explain this mystery for me?  It would be good to know the reasons as we do get congregants who are nominally orthodox coming to our progressive services and we may get asked about this.  I have done some preliminary research and suspect it’s to do with a 3-year cycle of readings as opposed to an annual cycle but I haven’t found anything definitive.

Rabbi Jonathan Keren-Black replies:

If you use an electronic calendar, you can import the Google public calendar ‘PROGRESSIVE JUDAISM CALENDAR WITH SHABBAT AND FESTIVALS’

The answer regarding the Torah readings is straightforward once you get it, but complicated to explain!  In some years, on one or two occasions, the orthodox 'extra day' of festivals intrudes into shabbat whereas ours (and Israel's) do not.  This coming shabbat is an example.  For us (and Israel), Pesach finishes on Friday at sunset, so shabbat is just shabbat.  But for the orthodox outside Israel, you need to remember that originally, over 2000 years ago, the new moon was only announced once it had been sighted - or by default.  A new moon can be one day or the next.  So if it was sighted, and confirmed on the first day, then THAT was the first day of the month.  If it was sighted on the day after - or if it was not sighted, because it was cloudy etc - then THAT was the first day of the month!  Within Israel, it was considered that there was time to sort this out before the festivals occurred (except, perhaps, for Rosh Hashanah, the only one that falls at the start of the month!).  But outside Israel, there was concern that the message might not get through, or there might be a mistake.  Hence they observed both the first day a festival could be - and the second!

As Pesach COULD HAVE started last Friday night OR last Saturday night, this coming Saturday COULD BE the 7th day Pesach (there is no such thing as 8th day, even for the orthodox - they celebrate Seder night - and the first day on the first day that COULD be Pesach - but they know that they may have celebrated a day early (!) - so they celebrate the first day AGAIN the next day - hence second seder is actually the night that would be first seder if the night before turned out to be premature!).

The silly thing is that we have known the exact and correct days for 1800 years (Mar Shmuel in Babylon calculated the dates - including the leap year system that keeps our years in line with the seasons - so accurately that it still works today!).  But - tradition! So the orthodox continue to have to eat matzah for an extra day (though no-one has ever explained why they don't fast for second day Yom Kippur!).

We, like Israel, continue with our weekly Torah readings (in this case Sh'mini) but they have a special reading for (second) last day Pesach! They call it 8th day for simplicity, but if you have followed me, you will see that it is really 7th day (repeated).  It is only 8th day in relation to our 7 days!

So, we are a week ahead for a few weeks.  This also sometimes happens when Shavuot is on Friday (the orthodox then have it on Friday and again on Saturday!).  

The next question is how do they 'catch up' when we are ahead (or ‘how do we slow down’).  Now several times in a regular year we can have double Torah portions (eg Tazria/Metzorah), because there are 'excess' Torah portions, so that there are enough even in a leap year (with an extra month and four extra shabbatot to fill).  And the week after next is the one where the orthodox will be reading Tazria/Metzorah.  So this week we will read Shmini, and the next week (when they read Shmini) we'll be reading Tazria.  The following week, (when they read Tazria/Metzorah) we'll be reading Metzorah - and voila - after that we're back in sync!

I hope that is clearer!

Good luck explaining it!

One other point from this – even though Israel marks 2 days Rosh Hashanah since it falls at the beginning of the month, since we have known the exact day when the month starts for 1800 years, and since ‘Yom T’ruah’ is a day-long festival (not ‘Y’mei T’ruah!), there is no necessity to mark it for 2 days, whether Israel does or not!  So, for those who wish to have a second day (and why not have an extra service – we should have three every day of the year!), it should be called ‘2^nd day Tishrei’ (as we call it), not ‘2^nd day Rosh Hashanah’.

L'shalom

Rabbi Jonathan