Tzav: Commands and Choices

"Tzav." "Command." "The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Command…"

"Tzav" is a tricky word nowadays. In pre-modern times more or less everything and everybody we encountered (both within and beyond Judaism) accepted as a given the existence of an omnipotent and omniscient God who commands us to act in accordance with certain principles and ideas. Today, in contrast, more or less everything and everybody we encounter accepts as a given that we're not obligated to believe or practice anything because it is up to the individual to decide such matters on his or her own. What was a world of command has become a world of choice, and suddenly, everything feels entirely different.

In a world of command, multiple choice is impossible; in a world of choice, singular command is untenable. Yet the latter world is our home, a place where there is profound dissonance between the commanding voice of God, and the multiple voices of choice. How should we manage this discord? How should we resolve this tension?

The truth is I'm not so sure that it is resolvable, and, even if it is, I'm not sure I want to resolve it. Perhaps all I can do is to share my own thoughts and struggles, and invite you to do likewise. I have difficulty with the idea of a singular commanding voice that imposes itself on me, not least because I know that voice will always be mediated through something or someone. My capacity to understand any text is always compounded by my own limitations: even when I read Torah in its original Hebrew with as many of the m'farshim as I can collect, I can never know for sure its "true" meaning or intention. It will always remain a text as interpreted by me, influenced by the people and forces that surround me. Therefore, I can have no certainty about what constitutes a "true" version of Judaism – I am no more convinced by the certainty of a haredi rabbi living in Bnei Barak than I am by that of a Reform rabbi living in the Borough of Barnet.

On the other hand, I don't know how to function in a world that rejects the idea of "tzav" – the idea that there is no commanding voice that contains within it an eternal notion of truth. If there is no notion of truth, it becomes easy to slide into relativism, where there are no notions of right or wrong either. Judaism does command me to behave in certain ways, even if my capacity to know those ways is imperfect due to my own limited ability to interpret the tradition, not to mention my own weakness to always live up to the standards it sets. My responsibility, therefore, if I reject a world built on the quicksand of relativism, is to uncover that tradition, both by delving deeply into it, and by learning about it from those who are similarly engaged in the pursuit. To do that I need both the haredi rabbi living in Bnei Barak and the Reform rabbi living in the Borough of Barnet, because within both of their voices, as within mine, exists a small component of the commanding voice of God.

Alasdair MacIntyre suggests that a tradition is "a historically extended, socially embodied argument," and makes the claim that it may be considered to be "in good order" if it is dynamic and generative, responding to internal debate and changing circumstances as it seeks to realize its vision of the good life. Part of the historically extended, socially embodied argument that enriches us today concerns the place of "tzav" in our lives – the notion of command, the nature of command, and our capacity to hear the command and respond to it, both in spite of, and with the help of the vast array of choices that are perpetually available to us.


(Also published at: www.limmud.org)