If life were a chessboard, would you be a pawn who can travel only in one direction or a queen, who can strike out in the direction of her choice?
Angels are unidirectional, some angels serve G-d in love, others with joy. Angels who love are incapable of joy and angels who rejoice are incapable of love, unless they “borrow” from each other.
This is why angels are described as stationary. The angel cannot abandon its post and take on a new position unless it is externally motivated. It’s capable of tremendous devotion and spiritual passion, but it’s incapable of moving away from itself. Of doing things in ways that are different from the nature imparted to it by G-d.
Are we different? Are we confined to those mitzvos that we deem “priority?” King Solomon refers to the Jewish people as G-d’s bride. If G-d is the king, then we are his queen. On the chessboard this means that the Jewish soul is capable of multi-directional travel.
Fundamentally, each tribe was unique. We each have our own characteristics and prefer our own path of worship. Our paths are unique to ourselves, but here is where we differ from angels: angels cannot veer from their characters, we can.
Just before his passing, Jacob blessed his sons with a beracha consistent with his character of spiritual worship. Afterword, he repeated all the blessings to each of his sons because he wanted his children to enjoy all forms of spiritual worship, not only those consistent with their individual characters. He wanted them to engage in all mitzvos, not only those within their natural comfort zones.
