Every Shabbat, communities around the world read a fixed section of the Torah, the parashat ha‑shavua. Over the course of the year, that cycle lets us “walk” through the entire Torah together, so that on Simchat Torah we complete Devarim and immediately begin Bereishit again. Occasionally, though, it feels like Am Yisrael is not quite walking in step: the weekly portion in Israel isn’t always the same as in the U.S., and some weeks we suddenly read two parashot instead of one. Both of these are really calendar questions: how do we fit 54 parashot into a year whose Shabbatot are “interrupted” by holidays, and how does the extra day of Yom Tov in the Diaspora affect that schedule?
The annual Torah reading cycle
Our current practice follows the Babylonian custom, already standard by the early medieval period, to complete the entire Torah every year. To make this work, the Torah was divided into 54 parashot, each made up of several chapters. The cycle begins right after Sukkot (on the Shabbat after Simchat Torah) and ends the next Simchat Torah, when we read V’Zot HaBracha and immediately roll back to Bereishit.
Because the Hebrew calendar is lunisolar, some years have more Shabbatot than others. Also, when Shabbat coincides with a major holiday, such as the eighth day of Pesach, the second day of Shavuot (in the diaspora), or Shemini Atzeret, the weekly parashah is set aside and replaced by a special festival reading. The result is that not every open Shabbat can carry its own separate parashah; we would either (a) not finish by Simchat Torah or (b) finish early and have “empty” weeks.
To keep the annual cycle on track, the Rabbis established that certain neighboring parashot can be combined into a double reading on a single Shabbat. Here is the list of the possible double parashot:
Vayakhel–Pekudei
Tazria–Metzora
Acharei Mot–Kedoshim
Behar–Bechukotai
Chukat–Balak
Matot–Masei
Nitzavim–Vayelech
In “shorter” years (non‑leap years, or years with more holiday Shabbatot), more of these pairs are combined so that we can still reach the end of the book of Devarim by Simchat Torah. In leap years, when an extra month of Adar adds several Shabbatot, some of the usual double parashot are separated and read on their own, because there is more “room” in the calendar.
So, the double parashot are the calendar’s safety valve. They allow one fixed list of 54 portions to flex enough to fit every possible year.
Why Israel and the U.S. sometimes read different parashot
Why will communities in Israel and the U.S. be on different weekly readings for a number of weeks?
Outside of Israel, most holidays are observed for two days, whereas in Israel, they are observed for one. When the second day of the holiday in the Diaspora falls on Shabbat, that community reads the special festival Torah reading, while in Israel, where that day is no longer a holiday, the regular weekly parashah is read. At that moment, Israel moves one step ahead in the cycle, and the Diaspora is a week “behind.”
A common example is when the last day of Pesach (the eighth day in the diaspora) falls on Shabbat. In Israel, Pesach ended the day before, so that Shabbat is a regular Shabbat and the community reads the next scheduled parashah (for instance, Acharei Mot). In the U.S., that same Shabbat is still Pesach, and the reading is the festival section for the last day of Pesach instead of the weekly portion. The next week, Israel goes on to the following parashah, while the Diaspora only now reads the one it “missed.” Israel is therefore one parashah ahead.
This can also happen when the second day of Shavuot falls on Shabbat in the diaspora (as it does this year). Each time, the pattern is similar: Israel reads the regular parashah, the Diaspora reads the Yom Tov portion, and the Diaspora ends up trailing by one.
How do the cycles re‑align?
According to Jewish law, we do not skip portions; a parashah that was “bumped” by a festival must be read the next available Shabbat. So the Diaspora cannot simply leapfrog ahead and match Israel’s parashah the following week. Instead, the realignment happens later in the year by using one of the pairs of double parashot.
Here’s how it works in practice:
After Pesach or Shavuot cause the Diaspora to fall behind by one portion, Israel continues reading one parashah per week.
On a later Shabbat, when Israel reads a single portion, Diaspora communities read a double portion—one parashah which Israel already read, plus the parashah Israel is reading that week.
From that Shabbat onward, Israel and the Diaspora are back in sync for the rest of the year.
For example, this year (which is why I am bringing this up now), when the second day of Shavuot is on Shabbat in the Diaspora, but is only one day in Israel (Friday), Israel reads Nasso on that Shabbat, while the Diaspora is still reading the Shavuot festival reading. The Diaspora remains one parashah “behind” until five weeks later, when Israel reads Chukkat and the Diaspora reads Chukkat-Balak together. After that, everyone is back on the same page—literally.
