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Thought for the Day: The Torah Speaks to Us Now and Every Day with Real Events, Real People; Not Bible Stories

Let's start with something that sounds incredibly boring: We -- outside of Eretz Yisrael -- are one parasha behind the Torah reading in Eretz Yisrael. That happened because the last day of Pesach in Eretz Yisrael was on a Friday, so they returned to their normally scheduled programing of weekly Torah readings that Shabbos. For us, though, the last day of Pesach was Shabbos, so we couldn't return to our normally scheduled programing of weekly Torah readings until the following Shabbos. How long will we be out of sync? About 15 weeks, when we will double up on Matos-Ma'asei and the first Shabbos of the three weeks.

So what, you ask? So, this, I say... Why are we waiting so long? The very Shabbos where this happened is, in fact, a doubleable parsha. We could have doubled up with Acharei-Mos/K'doshim and been in sync right away. That's question number one.

Question number two: there are actually two more possibilities before that 2 Av date; why are we waiting so long? And once we are waiting that long, why not just leave Matos and Ma'asei separate, and instead combine Nitzavim and Va'yelech? Just to make this question even stronger, consider that Matos has 112 verses, Ma'asei has 132, Nitzavim has 40, and Va'yelech has 30. So by combining Matos/Ma'asei we get the longest Torah reading -- 244 verses (on aliyah has 72 verses), and then end the year with the two shortest readings, 40 and 32 verses. Wouldn't it make more sense to keep Matos Ma'asei separate and combine Nitzavim/Va'yeilech? That would give us 112, 132, and 70 verses; much more organized, don't you think? Tosafos actually asks this question; it's a great question.

For a complete answer, I suggest/urge/adjure that you listen to (or watch, if you prefer) the excellent shiur by R' Dovid Heber available on TorahAnytime.com. I will, however, give you the headlines.

The reason we don't combine Nitzavim/Va'yeilech is because that would put Ki Savo -- with its very difficult reproof -- just too close to Rosh HaShannah. Yes, we certainly want mussar before Rosh HaShannah, but we need some time to process it. The reproof of Ki Savo is just too overwhelming; it would be paralyzing to go into Rosh HaShannah like that.

What about Acharei-Mos/K'doshim? The reason we did not combine Acharei-Mos/K'doshim (and sync up right away) is that it would have put B'chukosai -- with its reproofs -- more than two weeks before Shavuos; that's just too far away to have the desired effect. We want to have the reproof close to Shavuos, but not too close.

Why not catch up a little earlier though? If you combine other parshios, you would end up moving Pinchas out of the three weeks. We want Pinchas during the three weeks because it discusses the apportionment of the land and the korbanos. That is, we are very down during the three weeks because we are still in exile. So parshas Pinchas comes to give us some comfort -- we hear about the korbanos and the settlement of the land as a chizuk for us -- it could be this year!

This is profound. The weekly reading is not just to get us through the Chumash each year, but it is crafted to speak to us in our lives each and every day.

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