Question:
I ordered trees online for Shavuot. Seems like it will arrive by UPS on first day Yom Tov. Will I be allowed to accept it and place it in shul on Yom Tov or is it muktza?
Answer:
Thank you for your question.
My apologies that I didn’t get to see your question until after Yom Tov, at least you will know what to do if this situation happens next year. In short make sure it doesn’t happen, because we can not take it from the gentile, move the package, or derive benefit from it. The reason is since we may not tell a gentile to do melacha for us on Shabbos or Yom Tov, chazal also prohibited benefiting from the melacha that the gentile did (in this case it was bringing it thru a reshus horabim, and carrying it out of the techum Shabbos) for us on Shabbos or Yom Tov, . Since we can not benefit from it, it is muktza and can’t be moved.
Best wishes
Sources:
O:CH 277-1, 325-6, M:B 307-55,
Also, don’t we forbid placing trees in a Shul on Shavuos because of Chukas HaGoyim?
I was not getting into that. the word trees can be referring to any type of plant
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