There is a certain delight to be found in all sorts of messiness. We may look back in pride when we think on our various uneven journeys as individuals and as a people. Yet, this pleasing conclusion is reached only when all the confusing stitches come together in our lives in a beautiful and clearly visible design. We crave order and sense.
Indeed, the Creation narrative features a growing sense of order, sense, balance, and harmony. Creation begins in wild mixture, chaos, and darkness but G-d creates light and distills it from darkness. He divides the waters into upper and lower, organizes oceans and land, creates and classifies trees and plants. Day and night receive different organizing celestials and they begin the further task of dividing day from night and marking days and years. The sea receives its life forms, the sky its own; the land finds many types of beings. G-d creates humanity in His image, “male and female, He created them.” In fact, being human, writes the Rambam, requires distinguishing between truth and falsehood, to apply G-d’s logical order to the complex universe in which He placed us.
In short, messiness – and there are infinite types – has much to celebrate. But we should not forget to appreciate its very valuable friend and opposite: order.
