For the last several years Rabbi Katz has been a columnist for Moment Magazine. This national magazine is published every other month and includes a column entitled “Ask the Rabbi?” Together with nine rabbinic colleagues, Rabbi Katz responds to a range of questions in just 225 words. Below is Rabbi Katz’s most recent response. If you would like to see other rabbinic responses, go to www. momentmag.com. The variety of responses is always fun to see!

The Talmud says that just as people light a hanukiah, God lights a hanukiah. And just as traditional Jews wear tefillin, God wears tefillin. And as the fall holidays approach, I can’t help but ask myself about God’s sukkah. If God does have a sukkah, I wonder what God uses for s’chach, for a roof over the top of the sukkah.

S’chach is the dead remnants of plants. Our s’chach is usually a combination of bamboo poles and branches that Ken has cut from the bushes and trees in our backyard. Other people might use vines cut from a vineyard, dried out corn stalks, palm leaves cut from trees, or even clippings from backyard pruning. S’chach is that which is discarded as the result of the plant’s successful growth, after it has been cut loose from the earth. Perhaps God‘s s’chach comes from what we have been able to discard as a result of our own successful growth the previous year.