Hi, thanks for your message.

Hebcal.com (pronounced HEEB-kal, as in Hebrew calendar) is a free Jewish calendar and holiday web site.

The HebCal & Widget app on the Google Play store is developed by an organization called BotenSoft which is not affiliated with Hebcal.com. Although they use the same name, we have no relationship with them and cannot offer support for their app.

Thanks for your note. First of all, we’d like to apologize for any confusion or trouble. It sounds like there was more than a reasonable amount of embarrassment, and I’m really, very sorry about that. Hebcal is a labor of love for me, and I do it hoping to make things easier and more accessible for congregations and the leyning coordinators who serve them.

I see the problem you ran into, and I have to say, I’d be happy for your help in thinking through how I could better present the information. I’m more of a software guy who likes the data, which is all there, but the design of how to help people find what they want is really challenging, since people come to Hebcal for so many different reasons.

For each Parsha, there is a generic “parsha” page. This page has the typical breakdowns, but doesn’t reflect anything that might be going on liturgically in a given year. People typically navigate to this page when they’re interested in the Torah portion itself, and also when they want to learn which haftarah is *typically* paired with the parsha. This is valuable information that belongs somewhere on the site.

But as you noticed, if you click on the links from the calendar (one you generate or otherwise), you get a different page which lets you see anything more specific going on on that date. You can click on Parshat Tazria in 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025— it will give you the correct Haftarah for any given year. You are absolutely correct that the Rosh Chodesh Nisan page should mention Shabbat HaChodesh when relevant, and I have now fixed that. 

https://www.hebcal.com/holidays/rosh-chodesh-nisan-2022

How to make clear the difference between this general information for a Parsha and date-specific information for a particular year? I’ve tried to make the difference clear by the different headers, and it’s clear to me, but obviously this system failed for your congregation, your needs, and your ASL interpreter.

As an aside, if you are a leyning coordinator, you might find some benefit from downloading the CSV spreadsheets for each Hebrew year. 

https://www.hebcal.com/home/48/download-aliyot-breakdown-of-torah-readings

These spreadsheets aren't a replacement for complete luach in the sense that they don't include slots for prayers like Shacharit and Musaf or special holiday readings like Megilat Ruth and Akdamut on Shavuot. But they do include the regular Torah readings and any special maftir or Haftarah.

At any rate, I appreciate your understanding. I don’t make any money running Hebcal, and I do it hoping to make the most clear and accessible information available, so if you can help me figure out how to better serve people navigating the site, I’ll definitely consider it for the next time I have a big chunk of time to re-design the site (typically every 5-10 years). If appropriate, please convey my apologies to your larger community.

Thanks for using Hebcal. We're glad to hear the problem resolved itself! Google Calendar import sometimes takes a few minutes to fully process all of the events from the Hebcal feed.

Fixed again, and again, our apologies for the downtime. Lightning struck twice (metaphorically) on the Hebcal servers today. 

Shabbat shalom!

Hi, thanks for using Hebcal, and thanks so much for the bug report.

The download server is working again correctly now.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused.

Thanks for letting us know.

You might consider trying an alternative, such as https://www.pockettorah.com/ (free) or https://troptrainer.com/ (not free, but very high quality).

Sefaria also provides PocketTorah audio, but the PocketTorah app is a bit more full featured (including highlighting words as the text is chanted)

Hebcal is not affiliated with World ORT or with TropeTrainer or PocketTorah

Hi Etay, thanks for the suggestion. We'll consider this excellent idea but will make no promises to implement it soon. 

Although Hebcal has been offering Torah Reading & Haftarot for many years, we haven't made it our mission to include the calendar data for every event related to davening and leyning. The addition of the five megillot is a great suggestion, and could certainly help leyning coordinators with their task.

Regarding what exactly is read in synagogue, you may wish to consult a "pocket luach" which contains detailed information. For example, on Shavuot we read both Ruth and also אַקְדָמוּת (Akdamut). For example, Rabbi Miles Cohen's Luach Hashanah is used at my home synagogue.

Hi, thanks for using Hebcal.

If you want to merge Hebcal events with your calendar you can click the smaller "Download 2022 only" button at the bottom of the dialog box like so:

Hi, thanks for using Hebcal, and thanks for your question!

You can visit the Candle-lighting Times Year at a Glance page and enter your location. Then, at the bottom of the printable page we have added prev/next links with both Hebrew and Gregorian years:

thanks so much for these suggestions. We will plan to add these missing items to our leyning web pages and CSV files