Let It Snow!

Ah, winter! It's cold, it's wet - and in some places it even snows! Even in the south of North America, where snow is rare, this year it snowed.We have to admit that snow is one of the more interesting things about nature. It's not just frozen water - that's ice. Snow is crystal-like - meaning its structure is a repeating pattern. Think of the pictures of snowflakes, no two of which are supposed to be alike. Each branch of a snowflake duplicates every other branch, and they "grow" in a recognizable pattern.
Because of the structure of snowflakes, snow - the accumulation of millions and billions of snowflakes - has what's called an "open" structure - lots of space between the actual snowflakes. That's why it's soft - unless, of course, it's packed down by lots of pressure from outside.
When snow first hits the ground and accumulates, its soft, powdery - fluffy. It has to harden a bit before we can make snowballs. The more that falls, the more it "packs down."
One more thing: snow forms a blanket over the earth, and ironically insulates what's beneath it. While the snow is cold, and the ground level frozen, deep in the earth next spring's seeds are hibernating, protected from the harsh wind and freezing temperatures.
Chasidic philosophy explains, at length, that Torah is compared to water. Actually, Chasidism discusses how the Torah may also be compared to wine and oil - wine and oil representing different levels of the inner teachings of the Torah, the mystical aspect. Torah is first compared to water, however, for a number of reasons: water, like Torah, descends from a high place to a low place. Water, like Torah, penetrates whatever material it encounters. (One can see how wine and oil share some of these characteristic.) Water, like Torah, causes things to grow and quenches thirst - in the Torah's case, thirst for knowledge of G-dliness.
Water is compared to the revealed level of Torah - the narratives in the Torah, and particularly the laws and customs. For water, like the revealed level of Torah, is open and visible to all. (In this water differs from wine and oil, for the grape and olive must be squeezed to yield their liquids.) But there is a blandness to water; it is, in a sense, without taste; it has no special blessing. So, too, the revealed level of Torah can, if not approached or learned appropriately, appear to be "dry." (Ironic, considering that Torah is compared to water!)
What does this have to do with snow? Well, as discussed above, snow is a crystalline form of frozen water. That is, the "water nature" of snow is hidden within its structure - and condensed. Further, snow doesn't penetrate (until it melts), but covers - conceals and protects.
So, if we are to extend the analogy, perhaps it's possible to do so thus: If snow is an aspect of water, and water represents the revealed level of Torah - then snow should represent some aspect of that revealed level.
The revealed level of Torah has two parts: the legal and the Midrashic. Thus, we might say that snow represents the Midrash or Agada: it conceals deep, powerful lessons and insights, so lofty they must first be concealed in what appear to be "fantastic" legends. But just as the patterns of a snowflake contain not just the power, but also the beauty of water, so too do the Midrashim, in their "story structures," contain essential truths of Torah.