Triennial System

[javierschulman]

Hi Akiva
First of all i wanna thank you for the great job you did. I just discovered it.
One feature I was looking for in every app and online text is the following.
On many conservative communities around the world we use to read the Torah according to a triennial system as described in this teshuva: https://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/files/public/halakhah/teshuvot/19861990/eisenberg_triennial.pdf
Basically, every parasha is divided in three parts and every year we read one third of them every week. The same third for every parasha in a whole cycle, then, we move to the following third. This allows us to be on the parasha corresponding to every week on the year. Although we just read one third publicly, we study every parasha as a whole, no matter which third we are reading.
According to the responsa, there is a "custom" alliot division that we share among all our shuls. The whole division is included on the document. Because this division is not included on the tikunim, every baal kore in almost every consevative kehilla needs the table and also the text has to have perek and pasuk numbers to know where each alyiah starts/ends.
It would be very useful to have that alya division included in the tikkun. As far as I understand by reading the files on the repository, I think it shouldn't be that hard to implement if we format the data correctly.
I can help you in anything you may need.

Thanks in advance!

Javier

[pisomojadogrande]

Hi, Javier! I had the same thought about triennial aliyot.

What I think might be ideal here for Conservative baalei kriyah - though I am not yet exactly sure how to make it happen! - would be to be able to choose a triennial year (e.g. year 2, like we're on this year) and instead have the Aliyah in the sidebar show those divisions. Probably with a switch in the UI to toggle between full vs triennial 1/2/3. Not sure yet how easy it hard that will be.

Alternatively, I have a PR open for deep links. As implemented currently, it lets you jump (and link to) specific locations by sefer/perek/pasuk. So if it does get merged, it would make it easy, if you have some other site showing the weekly readings, to link directly to their start.

Curious what you think.

[akivajgordon]

@javierschulman – thanks for the RFE (and sorry for the late reply)!

To be totally honest, the triennial system is a little unfamiliar to me, so I never considered adding it, and I'm not exactly sure it aligns with the direction I wanted to go; however, I haven't made a hard decision on it yet, so I will sit with it for a while and we'll see.

That being said, as @pisomojadogrande mentioned, #83 has been merged, which lays the groundwork for deep linking to basically any location within the tikkun. For the time being, I like @pisomojadogrande's suggestion to create another site or tool that can link into here for each aliyah. It won't get you 100% of the way because this app will still show the standard 1-year cycle aliyot, but it's not a bad start.

I'll keep this issue open to see what other traction it gets or other ideas that come out of it. Feel free to keep the discussion going.

[javierschulman]

Hi @akivajgordon and @pisomojadogrande , how are you?
First of all I want to thank you. It seems that you have share with me two passions: Torah reading and computers.

@pisomojadogrande functionality is a great advance.

Regarding the triennial system in hebcal is very well documented. They have the corresponding weekly division for every system, full and triennial.
I found this file on ther github https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hebcal/dotcom/7b643420e96ec121a3e29b0ad656dcd54660ef54/hebcal.com/dist/aliyah.xml
It has the full demarcation for every alyia in every cycle.
What I imagine is a selector in tikkun.io where you can select which division system is shown (full, triennial 1, triennial 2, triennial 3) for example.
What do you think?
I'd be very happy if I could do it by myself, but actually i'm not a programmer.

Best regards!
Javier

[pisomojadogrande]

Javier, I would find the same thing quite useful; it doesn't exist anywhere else that I know of.

I have started to think about it. It'll take me a little more time to figure out how to implement a full/triennial view toggle (and account for all the cases, like double parshiyot). Akiva has done a fabulous job of structuring this whole project, so I expect it would be extensible that way.

If anybody else out there is reading and beats me to it ... Go for it!

[mjradwin]

Hi @javierschulman, thanks for mentioning Hebcal. There's a more up-to-date triennial data source available in https://github.com/hebcal/hebcal-leyning

It's implemented in JS so it would be possible for tikkun.io to use the Hebcal Triennial algorithm pretty easily. The API design leaves a bit to be desired but I believe you can get it to do what you want.

https://github.com/hebcal/hebcal-leyning/blob/main/README.md#Triennial

https://github.com/hebcal/hebcal-leyning/blob/main/README.md#getTriennialForParshaHaShavua

Note that Triennial readings currently only work in the Diaspora, because the Conservative teshuva didn't account for the differences in the Israel sedra scheme when there isn't a yom tov sheni.

[CarlSayres]

Just curious if this ever moved forward. Just adding my vote for an option to view the aliyot using the triennial system.
I use tikkun.io every week to prepare the leining. It is by far the best online tikkun, and it would be even more useful for me if it could show the triennial aliyot. Thanks for a great piece of software!

[mjradwin]

Two changes on the Hebcal side during the past 3 years:

1. The @hebcal/triennial package was split out from @hebcal/leyning
2. Although there is no formally specified triennial cycle for the Masorti movement in Israel, Hebcal began publishing a draft schedule in May 2023. Due to differences in the Torah readings schedule based on keeping only a single day of chag in Israel, the Diaspora triennial system does not work for a small number of parsha combinations that can occur in Israel.