A kosher sukkah needs both walls and schach. The thing is that the walls and the schach do not get put together until the very end because that’s when the sukkah is complete. And that can cause some big problems:
Maybe the walls are too far apart so there is not enough schach.
Maybe the walls are too close so now everyone in the sukkah will be squished, but there was enough schach to let the walls be farther apart.
Below is a list of three sukkah dimensions and three schach amounts. Match them so that each sukkah will have enough schach to cover it. (Remember: it’s okay for a sukkah’s schach amount to be more than its area.) Chag Sameach!
Challenge: Can you match the sukkahs below with the correct schach piles?
Avi’s sukkah: 6 ft X 8 ft
Becky’s sukkah: 7 ft X 12 ft
Chaim’s sukkah: 9 ft X 11 ft
Schach pile #1: 90 square feet
Schach pile#2: 50 square feet
Schach pile #3: 100 square feet.
Solution:
Avi’s sukkah is 6 X 8, which equals 48 square feet, so it gets matched with schach pile #2.
Becky’s sukkah is 7 X 12, which equals 84 square feet, so it gets matched with schach pile #1.
Chaim’s sukkah is 9 X 11, which equals 99 square feet, so it gets matched with schach pile #3.
Chag Sameach!
Ari Blinder is a math educator living in Highland Park, NJ and the owner of Math for the Masses, an innovative math tutoring and consulting company. He can be reached at [email protected]
