Q&A from the Bais HaVaad Halacha Hotline

Hands Down

January 8, 2026

Q I’m on the road and would like to eat my lunch. I don’t have access to water, but there’s snow on the ground. Can I use it for netilas yadayim?

A The Shulchan Aruch (160:12) says that snow, hail, sleet, and ice can only be used for netilas yadayim after they melt into liquid, so you would need to fill a container with snow and wait. Even if it melts enough to pour but still contains ice crystals, like slush, it is not valid for netilas yadayim (implied in Y.D. 201:30).

In general, instead of netilas yadayim, you can perform tvilas yadayim, dipping your hands into a kosher mikveh, which contains forty se’ah of rainwater (O.C. 159). While snow is not considered water for netilah purposes, it may qualify as water for a mikveh. But whether snow is valid as a mikveh is the subject of debate (see Y.D. ibid.), so it is advisable to avoid using it for tvilas yadayim (Mishnah Brurah 160:58).

If you have no water available and melting the snow is not practical, you could rely on the lenient view and dip your hands into it, provided that there is enough snow to yield, after melting, forty se’ah of water (Rama Y.D. ibid. and Taz ibid. 40), which is approximately 152 gallons for deRabanan matters according to the Chazon Ish. (Because snow is far less dense than water, it takes much more than forty se’ah of snow to produce forty se’ah of water. The density of snow varies greatly; wetter snow can be several times denser than fluffy, dry snow.) The snow must all be connected, even in a thin layer, to combine for the shiur (Mishnah Brurah ibid., citing Magein Avraham).

Usually, the bracha on tvilas yadayim is the same as netilas yadayim, unless the water is of a kind that is unusable for netilah and only valid for tvilah (Mishnah Brurah 159:97, differing from the Rama). In the case of snow, however, though it is unusable for netilah in its current form, it will be usable after it melts, so the bracha is “al netilas yadayim” (see Chayei Adam 39:9).