Tzav: Don’t tell me what to do!

Picture this: your partner’s absolute favorite dessert is cheesecake. You’ve already shopped for every ingredient. You’re practically counting the minutes until they leave so you can start — because tonight, you’re making them that cheesecake. The one that melts in your mouth and has a creaminess they love. Delicious and yummy, but the surprise alone is half the pleasure.

Then, just as they’re heading out the door, they say: You know what I’d really love tonight? That special cheesecake you make!

How do you feel right now?

Something just deflated. Don’t tell me you feel exactly the same as you did thirty seconds ago — because you don’t. That buoyant balloon? Gone. Your anticipation? Lost.

What happened?

A moment ago, you were the author of the gesture. The initiative, the anticipation, the surprise — all yours. Now you’re filling a request. The locus of control shifted, and with it, something essential about your motivation.

This is precisely the tension the Torah names in Parshat Tzav.

The portion opens with an unusual clustering: vayidaber (He spoke), leimor (saying), and then, Tzav. Command. Not a suggestion. Not an invitation. A command.

Given that the Torah contains 613 commandments,1 this raises an obvious question: what does being commanded do to our enthusiasm? If the locus of control is with Hashem, what becomes of our own will?

Rabbi Aaron L. Raskin teaches that elsewhere in the Torah, words like daber or emor — “speak” or “say” — carry an intellectual dimension. They invite the mind into the act of fulfilling the law. There are rational reasons for some laws, they make sense. Don’t cheat in business. Don’t steal. Treat others with compassion. Tzav works differently, he says. It bypasses the intellect entirely. It calls not for understanding but action — carried out with a specific kind of enthusiasm that in modern times we’re less familiar with: the eagerness to take on an obligation for the sake of a higher purpose.

Recognizing this is the point. We assume that rules and guardrails inhibit us, but having limits and boundaries are actually freeing. Without the constraints of scales and chords, music would be discordant. Without strict guidelines, architects and engineers couldn’t create masterpieces of design that break expectation. Sometimes, obeying laws allows us to go beyond ourselves. Having fixed decisions allows space to prioritize other choices. Closing devices on Shabbat for example, allows us the bandwidth (literally) to focus on family connections and bring spirituality into our lives.

Parshat Tzav lets us know that all commandments are important, and deciding which ones are more important isn’t for us to decide. There is no scale of value. The Kohein removes the altar’s ashes with as much care as he takes in lighting the lights. Choosing which commandments we elect to keep is a control issue. Can a musician choose which notes belong to a key? Paradoxically, structure is what makes beautiful music possible.

Engaging in this process of giving up agency is difficult. There’s something in us — by nature — that bristles at being told what to do. We are wired to resist authority. But Tzav suggests that within commanded obligation, a different kind of energy is available. Not the energy of spontaneous generosity, but something steadier: the discipline that, over time, becomes its own form of devotion.

Our tradition offers a teaching: “Do His will as though it were your will, so that He will do your will as though it were His” (Pirkei Avot 2:4). At the face of it, this seems like bribery or worse, a call to self-erasure. Instead, it’s a reorientation. Our own desires are often fleeting, self-serving, and shaped by the moment. Aligning with a Higher Purpose means choosing emunah —loyalty, trust — over the need for control. Not because our will doesn’t matter, but because we’re being invited into something larger than we might imagine.

This is not to be confused with free will.

We are, in fact, built to choose. Within the structure of notes, the musician makes music. Within the key, within the chord progression, every choice remains: tempo, rhythm, phrasing, feeling. The constraints don’t flatten your individuality. They’re what allows your very soul to sing.

The whole question is what we do with the structure we’re given.

Notice how much changes with a single word. Before: I have to do this. Now: I get to do this. Same action. Same commandment. Entirely different soul.

The tzav doesn’t diminish us. It’s an invitation for us to deepen our connection, to bring ourselves fully toward what we’ve been asked to do, and to discover that within obligation, there is more room than we even imagined.

That’s the choice that’s always ours to make.