As a former religion journalist and former home and garden writer, I appreciated this recent blend of the two subjects in Michael Tortorello's entertaining and informative NY Times piece about building a sukkah (or more than one, as it were), in his backyard.
The open-air structures are built to celebrate Sukkot, the Jewish harvest holiday and commemoration of the Israelites' 40 years of wandering in the desert. Jews are commanded to dwell in these structures for the holiday as their ancestors did after the Exodus:
You will dwell in booths for seven days; all natives of Israel shall dwell in booths. - Leviticus 23:42
Tortorello approaches it much like an informative home-and-garden piece, but rather than comparing gas grills or lawn fertilizers, he compares the merits of several brands of pre-fab sukkot - from the "Tubular Sukkah" to the "Kotel."
The results are both amusing and practical. The article is also a "trend" piece, highlighting Americans' increasing reliance on the packaged and pre-fab - even for religious purposes. It demonstrates how religion mixes with nearly every other beat - and how you can find a religion story in one way or another in nearly every section of the newspaper.
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