October 16, 2026 Counting Hallels & Noahide Mnemonics
Parshat No’ach
Before we get into Parshat No’ach, let me share a couple of calendar items with you. How many days are there in the general calendar year? I think most people know that the answer is 365 days in a regular year and 366 days in a leap year. I would also guess that most people think that there is a leap year every four years. That’s close, but a bit inaccurate. Because a solar year is a bit less than 365-and-a-quarter days, the calendar is tweaked to take away three leap years every four hundred years. The year 1600 was a leap year; 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not, even though they divide evenly by four. The year 2000 was a leap year; 2100 will not be a leap year.
As confusing or complicated as that might seem, our Jewish calendar is more so. We have years that have 353, 354, and 355 days. And we have years with 383, 384, and 385 days.
This year, 5787, has 385 days – the most for a Jewish year. And since 385 is a multiple of seven, there are exactly 55 weeks this year.
Without getting too deep into this part of the calendar, let me remind you that there are 14 different Jewish year-types – seven regular, 12-month, one Adar year-types and seven “leap” year-types, with 13 months and two Adars. Leap is in quotes because it isn’t the accurate term for the Jewish calendar; it fits the secular years with a February 29, but not our system. “Shana p’shuta” is the correct term for a regular, plain year and “Shana m’uberet” (literally, a pregnant year, carrying an extra month) for the two-Adar years.
When I finished davening this morning (Sunday, the first of the two days of Rosh Chodesh Marcheshvan), I got curious about how many times we say Hallel in a year like this one with the largest number of days.
It’s not easy to count accurately because there are people who say Hallel on Yom Haatzma’ut and Yom Yerushalayim and people who don’t. And then there are the three extra days of Hallel outside of Israel for the 8th day of Pesach, the 2nd day of Shavuot, and the 9th day of Sukkot.
So let me show you the results for a Religious Zionist in Israel, and you can subtract and/or add on your own:
Tishrei has 9 days of Hallel – 8 full and 1 with skipping.
Marcheshvan has 2 days of Hallel with skipping.
Kislev has 7 days of Hallel – 6 full, 1 with skipping.
Tevet has 2 days of full Hallel.
Sh’vat has 2 days of Hallel with skipping.
Adar Alef has 2 days of Hallel with skipping.
Adar Bet has 1 day of Hallel with skipping.
Nisan has 9 days of Hallel – 1 day of full Hallel; 8 days of Hallel with skipping.
Iyar has 3 days of Hallel – 2 full, 1 with skipping.
Sivan has 3 days of Hallel – 1 full and 2 with skipping.
Tamuz has 1 day of Hallel with skipping.
Av has 2 days of Hallel with skipping.
Elul has 1 day of Hallel with skipping.
That’s it – 44 days with Hallel in the current year-type of 385 days.
The numbers change depending on whether there is a 30th day of Marcheshvan, a 30th day of Kislev, and/or 30 days of Adar Rishon.
I just realized that we have to include the Hallel that we recite on the first night of Pesach and the divided Hallel at the Seder, bringing our total number to 46 recitations of Hallel.
By the way, Hallel with skipping is often referred to as “half Hallel.” That’s not accurate. Hallel is made up of T’hilim chapters 113-118; on Rosh Chodesh and the days of Pesach after the first, we skip the first 11 p’sukim of both T’hilim 114 and 115. Full Hallel has 85 p’sukim, nine of which are repeated, giving us 94 p’sukim in all. So, the 22 p’sukim we skip leave us with three-quarters Hallel. You can still call it half Hallel, but if you are a faithful reader of Torah by the Numbers, I would go with Hallel b’Dilug, Hallel with skipping. If you really want to, start a trend to call it three-quarters Hallel. That would be awesome or cool, but since kids make fun of adults who use terms that are passé, I would say it is frazoop! Kids cannot touch that word.
The smallest year has only 29 days in both Marcheshvan and Kislev, and only one Adar of 29 days. It has 50 weeks and three days left over.
More of this some other time. Just one more point for the years with 385 days: They can begin on a Monday, Thursday, or Shabbat (as this year did). And they will be followed by a year that will begin on the same day of the week as they did. In other words, we have another Shabbat-Sunday Rosh Hashanah in store for us in 5788. That is, if we are still using the fixed calendar. If a Sanhedrin is re-established, we will return to relying on eyewitness testimony and the Nasi of Sanhedrin to declare Rosh Chodesh, and the lengths of all the months will vary again between 29 and 30 days. In our fixed calendar, most months have a specific number of days; only Marcheshvan and Kislev vary.
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Before I get to No’ach, let me share a takeaway from Shabbat B’reishit.
The first Mishna in Avot chapter 5 states that the world was created with ten Divine sayings. Putting aside the drash that this refers to the Aseret HaDibrot being the blueprint for Creation, the plain understanding of the mishna is that it refers to the words “Vayomer Elokim” – And G-d said. Let there be light. Let there be Shamayim, the heavens. Dry land and seas. Vegetation. The heavenly bodies. Fish, insects, and birds. Land animals. And humans. Those are the eight countable, undisputed, unquestioned Divine sayings. Eight? Yes. That’s it. Commentaries on the Mishna say that “B’reishit bara Elokim eit haShamayim v’eit haAretz” is also a Divine saying, based on T’hilim 33:6, “Bidvar Hashem…” – By the word of Hashem, the heavens were made, and with the breath of His mouth, all their host.
OK, that makes nine. For number ten, there are three candidates.
B’reishit 1:28: “Vayomer lahem Elokim…” – And G-d said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the sky and all the living creatures that crawl on the earth.’
B’reishit 1:29: “Vayomer Elokim…” – And G-d said, ‘Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing herb which is upon the surface of the entire earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; it will be yours for food.’
And B’reishit 2:18: “Vayomer Hashem Elokim…” – And Hashem G-d said, ‘It is not good that man is alone; I shall make him a helpmate opposite him.’
1:28 is the command to raise a family.
1:29 gives humans food to eat.
2:18 leads to the separation of Adam HaRishon into man and woman.
All three candidate-p’sukim lack something the previous nine Divine sayings have. The first nine are G-d’s verbal commands to form and shape Creation. Number ten, whichever you choose – or actually, all three – is G-d’s telling us, human beings, to take the world He created and shaped for us, and use it to continue to live and be creative.
Look at B’reishit 2:1-3, the well-known “Vaychulu haShamayim v’haAretz…” We say it in the Friday night davening (most often twice) and we say it as the introduction to kiddush on Friday night. The word “asa,” past tense, refers to what G-d finished making. But the last word of this portion is “la’asot,” to make – to continue to make. We are tasked and challenged to continue G-d’s creation. Having children and raising them as good people and G-d-fearing Jews is only part of His challenge to us. We must be creative in many different ways, from cooking to writing to building to sewing and weaving to inventing things for the betterment of this world.
Hashem is m’chadeish b’chol yom tamid maasei V’reishit – He renews Creation every day. He did not stop after the original six days. What He did then was to make us active partners with Him in Creation.
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Finally, we come to Parshat No’ach. First a riddle for your Shabbat table. Why does No’ach remind us of the daughters of Tz’lofchad? If someone answers because one of the daughters was named No’a, give them only partial credit. The answer is that the daughters of Tz’lofchad had No ach (no brother).
Parshat No’ach has 153 p’sukim, ranking 4th in the Torah (behind Naso, Pinchas, and Bamidbar – all in the Book of Bamidbar). It is tied with Vayishlach asthe largest sedra, pasuk-wise, in the Book of B’reishit.
However, No’ach has very short p’sukim – it ranks 49th and 51st (out of 54 sedras) in words per pasuk and letters per pasuk, respectively. This drops it to 6th place in Sefer B’reishit both for number of words and letters, and 11th (for words) and 13th (for letters) in the whole Torah.
And it’s being written on 230 lines in a Sefer Torah on 230 puts it in 15th place.
So No’ach is a big sedra with short p’sukim.
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There are none of the Torah’s 613 mitzvot in Parshat No’ach, but there are references to the Sheva Mitzvot B’nei No’ach, the Seven Noahide Laws.
These mitzvot are considered universal, in the sense that they apply to all peoples of the world, unlike our Taryag.
The seven include the Big Three (prohibitions) – idolatry, murder, and incest/adultery – plus four other categories of mitzvot which follow the mnemonic Alef, Bet, Gimel, Dalet.
Alef stands for Eiver min hachai – literally, limb from a live animal. Simply put, the non-Jews of the world are required to kill an animal first before butchering it for its meat. This is the only “kashrut” feature for the Ben No’ach, in contrast to our rules governing which animals we can eat and which we cannot, ritual slaughter, and the prohibitions of neveila and t’reifa, meat in milk, and blood. If a non-Jew is feasting on a roast suckling pig, we can say B’tei-avon (Hearty appetite) to him. Not so to our fellow Jews.
Bet is for Birkat Hashem, “blessing” (meaning the opposite) G-d, i.e., blasphemy.
Gimel is for Gezel, theft. This is a chapter heading, not just one prohibition. According to one count, we have 19 different prohibitions among the 613 mitzvot that are all included in the one title of gezel.
So far, these first six of the seven Noahide Laws are prohibitions. The seventh, with the letter Dalet, is a broad category called Dinim. All societies of the world are supposed and expected to legislate just laws for the proper functioning of society. Dinim includes setting up legislatures and judicial systems to make laws and enforce them.
It should be obvious that this has been only a cursory presentation of the Sheva Mitzvot. There’s not enough room here to say much more.
I will add that the definition of a righteous gentile, a true Ben No’ach, is a non-Jew who observes these mitzvot (and others that are part of the whole body of mitzvot for B’nei No’ach beyond the seven categories) l’sheim Hashem Elokei Yisrael. In other words, one who recognizes the G-d of Israel as the one true G-d in the world and follows the Noahide laws because of Him.
And that’s it for this week (I didn’t even get to talk about our starting to ask for Tal umatar livracha on Motza’ei Shabbat No’ach).
Have a Shabbat Shalom and a Chodesh Tov.
