18 Elul: God in Cats by Dev Singer

Back in April 2024, I emailed Cantor Vera Broekhuysen asking for a copy of a resource she’d created listing all the names of God in Congregation Beth El’s siddur. My cat got in the way while writing the email, so I included a little joke at the end: “My cat, by the way, stepped on the backspace bar. I need to convince her that “Coco” is not a name for God. Somehow.”

I am rather fond of making cat-God jokes. We talk about worshipping our cats in this household. We feed them, change their litter boxes, give in to every demand for petting… in return they come when they want, purr when they want, and look so darn cute.

Cantor Vera replied to my email, including my joke. “And… why couldn’t Coco be a name for God? If God is everything, everyone, everywhere…..” And I can’t stop thinking about that.

I don’t believe in God, as a general rule. It drives my partner, who believes in God but did not grow up with ritual, a bit crazy that ritual and the rules around ritual mean so much to me when I don’t actually believe in God. Sometimes I find myself believing a little around the High Holy Days, and I half-jokingly blame that on the book imagery, seeing as I’m a librarian.

But God in my cats, in the cats I foster, in all cats, because God is everywhere? That hits me in my heart in ways I can’t totally explain. I can see it, somehow. I have to work to see God in people because people do so many horrible things, but God in cats? In the perfectly designed predators who just have to look at me to melt my heart? That is something I can understand.