Parshas Yisro

[Hilchos Shabbos]

"מזמור שיר ליום השבת, טוב להודות לד'..."

 Analyze an ice cube in a glass of water. Did you ever wonder why generally the colder something becomes, the denser it becomes, yet when you freeze water, it becomes lighter, and floats to the top?

"Consider the marvelous behavior of water. The colder the water becomes, the denser and heavier it is. Thus, the cold layers of water sink to the bottom, with the coldest of all at the lowest level. Accordingly, when water reaches the freezing point and hardens into ice, the ice should then sink to the bottom. Thus the bottom of the rivers and ponds would freeze first and the upper layers next, until the entire river or pond was frozen solid, and all life would perish in these bodies of water. The resultant catastrophe would involve more than the loss of food supply from fish, for the rivers and ponds would become dead and would become unfit for use as water; and they would be incurably polluted as a result of losing the living things that keep them fresh. But, miraculously, when the water is cooled to 4 degrees, it suddenly reverses its process of becoming denser and sinking lower. Instead, henceforth, the colder it becomes the lighter it becomes, so that ice forms not at the bottom but at the top, where it covers the water and shields it against the cold."

The Marvelous Wonders of Creation, by Rabbi Mordechai Menachem Reich ZT"L (Mordechai Menachem Mendel -en Dovid Aryeh), adapted from the works of Rabbi Avigdor Miller, ZT'''L