I am going to assume that by the time this edition of the Yated is in your hands, most of us have had a taste of Hashem’s gift of snow. That description is neither cynical nor sarcastic, G-d forbid, just accurate.

First, a vignette and perspective changer. One of my former members, now a Florida resident, just spent a few days in his old home. I asked him why he flew in the opposite direction of most people this week. His answer was simple. “My two boys, ages 6 and 8, are looking forward to playing in the snow.” Ah, yes, the innocent minds of the young. But there are many blessings in our current gift from heaven measured in inches of white stuff. I noticed a decent line in a book review about children and snow. It reads, “Snow is a joy we can’t buy, an event we can’t control and the closest thing we have to magic” (New York Times Book Review, January 25, 2026, page 14). Not bad, but the Torah does much better.

We mention snow at least twice a day during Shacharis. In the Hallelukas, we first recite, “He Who gives snow like fleece, He scatters frost like ashes. He hurls His ice like crumbs — before His cold, who can stand? He issues His command and it melts them” (Tehillim 147:16-18). A bit later, we add, “Praise Hashem…fire and hail, snow and vapor, stormy wind fulfilling His word” (ibid. 148:8). In his commentary on the siddur (Ashkenaz, page 63), Rav Chaim Kanievsky cites an amazing interpretation. “Some say that Hashem only brings snow if there is enough wool to protect us from the cold. Similarly, He will not bring the frost unless there is enough firewood for us to warm up.”

If I am not mistaken, Rav Chaim is referring to the saying of the Chiddushei Harim (see Likkutei Imrei Emes, Kesuvim, page 26) or of Rav Boruch of Mezibuzh that when we say in Boruch She’amar, “Boruch gozer umekayeim — Blessed is He Who decrees and fulfills,” it also means that if Hashem, lo aleinu, decrees something unpleasant, He also gives us the ability to survive and overcome it. Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach added that we learn this from Yaakov Avinu’s travails as well. When Yosef Hatzaddik disappeared, Yaakov thought that he was dead, but vayema’ein lehisnachem — he was inconsolable. However, had Yosef really been dead, he would have been protected by the edict that after a certain amount of time, a person forgets about his grief. Of course, this doesn’t mean that we ever forget about our loved ones, only that Hashem blesses us with the ability to move on. Yaakov could not, because Yosef was still alive (see Rav Yechiel Michel Stern, Otzar Yedios Hasholeim 1:355).

This is one of the lessons of snow. Hashem sends it to us, but, in general, we manage. We have warm homes, shovels, boots…and eventually it goes away. My rebbi, Rav Yitzchok Hutner, used to say that the posuk of “Hikuni petza’uni — They struck me, they bloodied me” is in Shir Hashirim (5:7), while the posuk of “Chasdei Hashem ki lo somnu — Hashem’s kindness has surely not ended” is in Eicha (3:22). We would have thought the opposite, but Hashem works in mysterious ways. This week, it would be wise for us to contemplate the chesed that comes with snow.

Let us begin with two stories of gedolei Yisroel and their families relating to the cold and snow. Rav Yisroel Salanter’s daughter was convalescing in a hospital in the German city of Hamburg. The gentile patients and their families noticed that Rav Yisroel’s daughter always had numerous visitors at her bedside. When they inquired as to the reason for her “popularity,” she explained that her father was a prominent Jewish leader. They asked for particulars about him, but she felt that she wouldn’t be able to explain to them the importance of Rav Yisroel’s Mussar Movement and how it was elevating Klal Yisroel. Instead, she shared with them one of his signature observations about the care and love with which Hashem had created the world and arranged for their welfare.

She related that when she was a young girl, she had asked her father the following question. “Why is it,” she inquired, “that while cold water is heavier than hot water, frozen water is not heavier than regular cold water. Logic would dictate that as the water gets cold enough to freeze, it would be heavier, but lo and behold, it actually floats.” Rav Yisroel answered his daughter with an elaborate scientific explanation that illustrates the Ramchal’s famous statement (Derech Hashem, beginning of Chapter 2) that Hashem’s creation of the world was a cosmic act of love for His universe. “If frozen water would always sink,” Rav Yisroel began patiently, “all the fish in the rivers and lakes would die, since the blocks of ice wouldn’t allow them to move, retrieve food or function at all. Similarly, even during the summer, the upper layer of the ice would melt, but the heavier ice below would remain frozen, continuing to destroy all marine life. Therefore, Hashem arranged for icebergs and similar frozen entities to float, so that the fish and other marine life can survive.” The other patients and their families agreed that the man who had such explanations for G-d’s plans for the world must indeed be a great man (told by Rav Moshe Soloveitchik in “Veha’ish Moshe).

The second story is better known and was related by Rav Yechezkel Abramsky, famed author of the Chazon Yechezkel on Tosefta, about himself. The great gaon was sent to frigid Siberia for the sin of teaching Torah under the Bolsheviks. He had been a scrawny gaunt child, always prone to catching a cold. In the Gulag, all the prisoners had their own clothing confiscated and replaced by thin worthless rags. To add more pain and danger in the arctic wastes, they were made to walk barefoot and many burly political prisoners soon died of frost. Rav Abramsky raised his hands high to shomayim and davened. “Ribono Shel Olam, I know that Chazal (Avodah Zarah 3b) teach that ‘although all is in the hands of heaven, we must watch ourselves when it comes to [excessive] heat or cold.’ However, that is where someone has the option of protecting himself. These wicked people have made that impossible. It therefore comes back to You, Hashem, so please protect me.” Rav Chatzkel concluded, “Although as a child my mother had to clothe me in many layers to keep the cold out of my thin body, in Siberia I never once even so much as caught a cold.”

We can sum up the two stories as illustrating for us that Hashem has many ways of taking care of His creations. He grants each creature ways of surviving, from the burrs of the porcupine to the disinclination of any larger predator to start up with the skunk, to the incredible success of each species to survive in the environment in which Hashem placed it. But even the inanimate domeim part of the universe has been endowed with natural and — in the case of the snow and ice — even supernatural powers to help other creations of Hashem survive. This explains the juxtaposition of wool and ice, which seem like opposites in the above-quoted posuk. Just as the wool brings warmth to its original wearer and to the human beings who don it later on, so does even the frozen ice protect the creatures below in the most magnificent of ways (see also Rav Avigdor Miller, Lev Avigdor, page 99).

But there is an even deeper message and lesson to be learned from the snow and ice. The posuk (Iyov 37:6) tells us that Hashem says to the snow, “Be upon the ground!” What exactly is this posuk telling us that we didn’t already know? The Zera Shimshon (on Aishes Chayil, page 62) quotes the posuk that we recite Friday night, “lo sira leveisa misholeg — she fears not snow for her household” (Mishlei 31:21). What doesn’t the aishes chayil fear and how does she accomplish this? The Zera Shimshon cites the words of the Shach (on Shemos 4:6) that when Moshe Rabbeinu was being given miraculous signs from Hashem to show Paroh, he was told, “Bring your hand inside your shirt…behold his hand was leprous like snow.” Now, we know, says the Shach, that it only mentions the leprous quality of the color of snow regarding Miriam (Bamidbar 12:10). “Here the snow is revealing that this manifestation was not from the middah of din, which is justice with rigor, but from rachamim, which is compassion and mercy.” The Zera Shimshon adds that it is only on the surface that this is a tzoraas, just as snow is only difficult to deal with on the surface.” We may add that it only creates a temporary inconvenience, but it brings kapparah in the end.

Although much of this subject is discussed by the Chassidishe seforim from Kabbolah, in light of what we have discovered earlier, we can understand it on a more basic level. Although snow and even ice seem to be difficult to deal with and perhaps are even negative, in essence they are ultimately for our benefit. Just as the ice protects the fish and snow keeps the crops protected from destruction, so the snow forces us to slow down, look carefully at its purity and beauty and return to our roots, which are full of taharah and kedusha. This definition of snow as it relates to purity may be seen in the posuk that is part of the haftorah of Parshas Devorim. Yeshayahu (1:18) says, “If your sins are like scarlet, they will become white as snow.”

Perhaps even more interesting, although the halacha doesn’t follow this opinion, is that some poskim (see Mordechai, Chulin 6:654) quote from one of the Gaonim that we may cover the earth from the shechitah of a bird or wild animal with snow because the posuk says that it comes from the ground. In point of fact, the Medrash (Pirkei D’Rebbi Eliezer quoted by the Chiddushei Anshei Sheim on the Mordechai) states that the earth itself was created from the snow beneath the Kisei Hakavod, Hashem’s Throne of Glory.

We may now conclude that there is much more than meets the eye to the snow on our lawns. It may be the very stuff from which everything was created. It most certainly reminds us of how pure and white the world and we ourselves can be. It is a reminder of how Hashem takes care of us even when we think that we our freezing. So let us thank Hashem for this gift, even if we will be happy when it is gone. Let’s just not forget its very warm lessons.