New Pasuk Location Columns in basehasefer.com

בס"ד

יום חמישי, ערב פורים קטן, תשפ"ד

What's new?

Three new informational columns have been made available to search results:

• Parshas Hashavua: indicating which weekly parsha contains the pasuk for Chumash or which haftara contains the pasuk for Navi
• Triennial Sidra: indicating which sidra contains the pasuk for the reading cycle which used to take place long ago in Israel
• Other קריאות: indicating where the pasuk might appear in public readings of Tanach throughout the year or even in readings that were required at the time of the בית המקדש

These will hopefully make locating the פסוקים a bit more intuitive and will also offer insight as to where each פסוק is used in public readings.

One instant benefit that comes to mind is something we have mentioned here in the past. That הפטרות were often selected based on words or phrases that are shared by the main Torah reading of the day.  If one performs a search and notices that a significant amount of results are limited to the קריאה and הפטרה in question, then this can highlight and stress why the הפטרה was chosen.

To see this in action:

1) in the search settings panel on the right side of the screen, sort according to "שאר קריאות" and select "descending order".  (This is not a mandatory step but it will highlight the new feature better since only פסוקים with associated readings will appear first)

2) click the search button at the left of the search bar

3) to enable the new search result columns select the three columns: פרשת השבוע, סדרת ג' שנים, שאר קריאות from the "statistics columns" dropdown - if one scrolls down to result #649 the first pasuk of the קריאת התורה of Purim will appear (it is אדר after all and a nice place to start!)

Another new feature is that there are new ways to sort our results, by "שאר קריאות" as seen above and by פרשת השבוע name. (In the future I hope to enable a פרשת השבוע sort by natural sequence from בראשית to וזאת הברכה so that pesukim contained in קריאות and הפטרות of the same parsha will be able to appear together).

This week's פרשת תצוה

We can instantly reap some rewards from this new feature when comparing this week's parsha תצוה against its haftara (יחזקאל מג:י-כז).

You will notice that the four-word phrase searched above occurs in both our קריאה and הפטרה and only twice in all of Tanach. We have the added bonus of the word סביב appearing in each.  Both פסוקים deal with taking some דם שחיטה a from a קרבן and applying it to something.  While in the הפטרה it gets applied directly and immediately to the מזבח, in תצוה it goes directly on a כהן before getting sprinkled on the מזבח. Each section occurs within a general process of a חנוכת המזבח - in תצוה the משכן, and in יחזקאל the בית שלישי.

This same פסוק in יחזקאל also bears a slightly different resemblance to an earlier פסוק in our פרשה where in each case it's dealing with blood applied to the מזבח.  In this case, they don't have an exact word phrase in common but a very similar sequence of five closely occurring words:

Again here, this occurs in both our קריאה and הפטרה and only twice in all of Tanach. In this comparison, the actual קרבן is even more closely aligned as in each case it's a פר לחטאת (see שמות כט:יד and יחזקאל מג:יט).

One more interesting commonality between our קריאה and its הפטרה is the exact word זרת (no prefix or suffix): in the פרשה it appears as a measurement for each side of the חשן and in the הפטרה it appears as a measurement for part of the מזבח.

The only other place in all of the Tanach where the exact word appears in the section of פרשת פקודי in a parallel section to תצוה dealing with the בגדי כהונה and the חשן.

Coming soon - פרשת שקלים

Now let's shift to two weeks from now since פרשת שקלים is fast-approaching. We will compare its קריאה at the beginning of כי תשא against its הפטרה from מלכים ב יב:א-יז.

In the following two examples, let's click the button on the top left to enable searching for words (or word-patterns) that appear out of order.

Keeping in mind that the "wild-card" asterisk character will indicate a place-holder for zero-to-many of any letters and keeping in mind that the pattern *תנ* will tend to match to words indicating a נתינה, when searching for the following pattern:

It results in only seven appearances in all of Tanach - two matches appear in the קריאה and one match appears in the הפטרה.  If we add the condition that the פסוק must end with 'שם ה, then there is only one occurrence outside of the קריאות of פרשת שקלים and that has to do with a very similar collection of funds for the מקדש to that of מלך יהואש - the one with מלך יאשיהו that appears towards the end of מלכים. (Incidentally, the פסוקים from דברי הימים that appear above are both from the aforementioned story with יאשיהו that is parallel to the one in ספר מלכים).

In the following search, we will also look for word-patterns that appear close together but out of order:

Again, the only two times in Tanach where these patterns occur are within the קריאה and הפטרה of פרשת שקלים.

A final quiz

Have you ever wondered which פסוקים in Tanach are read most often from a ספר in public from year to year?  We can use our new search result columns to help us determine this.  We start by sorting search results according to descending order / "שאר קריאות" as we did at the beginning of this article and then scrolling down and perusing whether their are any long lists in the שאר קריאות column.

From what I have found (please email a correction to me at info@taryaganalytics.com if this is in error!), there are two different sections of חומש which are read 12 times during a typical year.  They are:

1) במדבר כח:ט-טו - seven pesukim, 12 times during the year: once during the regular reading for פרשת פינחס and an additional 11 times during the year for each ראש חודש (except for ראש השנה).  I only count these seven פסוקים within the normal קריאה for ראש חודש since these are the ones read even when ראש חודש falls out on שבת.

2) שמות לד:א-י - ten pesukim, 11 or 12 times during the year: once during the regular reading for פרשת כי תשא; The four fast days of י"ז תמוז, צום גדליה, עשרה בטבת and תענית אסתר both שחרית and מנחה; Tisha B'Av at מנחה; Chol Hamoed Pesach (all years - sometimes it will be the קריאה for שבת); Shabbos Chol Hamoed Sukkos (but only on years when there is one).

I hope in the future to enable additional result columns like these such as references to where a פסוק might be quoted or referenced in our סדר התפילה.

Note: initially, the קריאות התורה and הפטרות are listed with an assumption of a חוץ לארץ locale according to מנהג אשכנז.  I have future plans to include user settings that will allow one to alter these choices among other things.