Shabbat VaYetze

Why is the table in such disarray with papers everywhere? This area was just cleaned up a few hours ago! This question still rings in one's ears whether as a spouse or a teenager. It’s so much easier to make something messy than to put items in their place. But don’t blame yourself, It’s the nature of the Universe. Objects have a potential to go towards chaos and disorder as opposed to organization. We know this term from Torah as Tohu VaVohu. The Universe, before God created order, was in a state of disarray. But with God’s help, things can be much less chaotic in life as every item is put in its place.
This term is commonly known as: boundaries.

Yaaqov starts his journey to his uncle Lavan. This was to be a treacherous journey both spiritually and physically. What was Lavan’s prime deficiency? His name says it all: Lavan. Lavan means white in Hebrew which implies holiness and purity, yet Lavan was far from it. White, is not really a color, it is actually composed of all of the colors. If one were to shine a beam of white light through a prism, the light would split or diffract into all of its visible component colors: red, green, blue etc. this is called a rainbow. When the sun shines through rain drops the same effect occurs. Black on the other hand. is devoid of any colors, empty and lightless. Since white contains all of the colors, and is all inclusive, it therefore knows no boundaries.

When Lavan first meets Yaaqov, after embracing, kissing and listening to his nephew, his first words to Yaaqov are “Ach Atzmi UvSari Atta” - “Nevertheless, you are my flesh and blood.” What Lavan is essentially telling Yaaqov is that “We are one, we are the same”. In other words, there should be no boundaries between us. Yaaqov knew that if he is to survive in such an environment let alone grow as a human being and achieve his potential, he would need to continuously define himself by the means of creating boundaries. Yaaqov immediately responded with his first chronological boundary that he would like to marry Rachel, but will only be there for 7 years. (When I use the term boundary, it is not meant to merely create a division among people, but for a person to define oneself, to get to know oneself, and to create the appropriate distance necessary for certain relationships.) Perhaps this is the Midrashic message of Yaaqov placing stones under or around his head when he slept only to find them to have turned into one whole stone upon awakening in the morning at the outset of his journey. Only when the rocks delineated their own individual roles as independant rocks, did they eventually become one main stone and were able to work togather. The first thing God did when he created the Universe was to delineate boundaries and make clear distinctions such as, heaven and earth, light and darkness, night and day. Without these distinctions, the universe would be Tohu VaVohu, utter chaos. Judaism is finding the delicate balance of black and white, not too much black and no too much white.
As for the mess on the table, I can’t really help you. All I can say is that trying to put things in order comes from a deep spiritual need which started from the creation of time, but where does one put everything??!!