Puzzles
Posted by Nancy Burnett on March 20, 2026
"As we learn from our Torah, G-d has gifted us with free will and choice. It is up to each of us to assemble the pieces of our collective lives into the meaningful creation with which the world began — where we honor and respect all living things and provide a world of peace and harmony for all."
— Nancy Burnett
The Book of Genesis begins with G-d creating order out of chaos. Humans continually dismantle that order into ever-expanding chaos affecting individuals, cities, states, countries, and the world until we reach a point where we feel helpless to reassemble the fractured pieces we have scattered.
On a cold, wintry day in Ohio, I watch as my family gathers around a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle trying to assemble a picture of antique cars from assorted bits and pieces of unrelated colors and wonder why they are subjecting themselves to such a frustrating task. Their capacity for frustration knows no limits!
In a world where we seemingly have no control over anything surrounding us, many of us turn with renewed interest to puzzles — often jigsaw puzzles — mankind’s search for order and sanity.
Although I do Wordle daily, I am not a devoted puzzle aficionado. Rearranging five letters into the correct order to form an everyday English word is hardly world changing, but it gives me a satisfying start to my day. It is one little piece of chaos that I can control. For me, my mid-morning ritual and coffee sets me off in an organized beginning; it helps me gather my thoughts before I am inundated by the news feeds on my phone.
Puzzles of various kinds have been documented as far back as the 1300s. It is only recently that they have enjoyed a renewed popularity due in part to the COVID pandemic. John Spilsbury is believed to be the first to create jigsaw puzzles as we know them in 1760. He took a map and cut it into randomly shaped pieces to be reassembled into the order from which he began.
In these turbulent and unsettled times, we have a feeling of our lives being out of control — the same feeling we experience as we begin a jigsaw puzzle of 1,000 random pieces. We search out the corners and edges trying to create order out of chaos. There is a feeling of satisfaction as we place the final piece in our jigsaw puzzle, but it is fleeting as we acknowledge the real, life-changing puzzles yet to be assembled. Chaos still surrounds us, but piece by piece we arrange what we can control and begin the task of repairing our world one piece at a time.
As we learn from our Torah, G-d has gifted us with free will and choice. It is up to each of us to assemble the pieces of our collective lives into the meaningful creation with which the world began — where we honor and respect all living things and provide a world of peace and harmony for all.
With faith and strength and hope we face each new day knowing that even small steps — like those individual puzzle pieces — with trial and error can form the world we are entrusted to care for.
Make each day meaningful for all G-d’s creation, and do our part in reassembling the world as it was first envisioned.