Whatever the Weather

Prepared for print by Faigy Peritzman

The first flurries started descending this past Friday night, and my kids ran outside to enjoy the excitement. I wasn’t sure if I should stop them from scooping up the little bits of accumulated snow or catching snowflakes in their hands. Is there any problem with playing with snow on Shabbos?

Some poskim, but not all, consider fresh snow that fell on Shabbos to be muktzeh, since it was newly created on Shabbos. In deference to those poskim, it’s customary not to play with fresh snow on Shabbos. Making a snowman or a snowball, writing or drawing in the snow, or deliberately stepping on the snow with the intention of melting or crushing it, is forbidden according to all views, even if you’re doing so with snow that fell before Shabbos.

My neighbors always plow their driveway but end up leaving the packed snow on my curbside. I’ve spoken to them many times to no avail. Do I have any halachic rights here?

You have a halachic right to demand that they not intentionally dump snow on your property. If you have warned them repeatedly, and they continue to ignore your request, you may complain to the local authorities, after discussing the matter with your halachic authority.

I recently inherited my Oma’s tea set and want to start serving hot tea on Friday nights. What is the correct procedure for doing this?

The preferred method for making tea on Shabbos is to prepare essence before Shabbos, pour some into your teacup, pour the hot water from the urn into a different cup, and then pour the hot water from the cup (kli sheini) into the teacup containing the essence. Alternatively, you may use prepared precooked tea (Nestea, etc.) by first placing the tea in the teacup, and then pouring water from a kli sheini over the tea.

Whenever possible, avoid using teabags (which contain fresh tea leaves) on Shabbos, but if you must, some poskim permit using them but only if the bag will be placed in a kli shelishi (urn to cup one, cup one to cup two, followed by the teabag in cup two).