The following discourse took place while we were reading the “Preface to the Sulam Commentary” at the Daily Kabbalah Lesson:

I am a black dot in an ocean of Upper Light. My entire existence is connected to this Light, and I assess myself with respect to it. I discover that He is good and bestowing with respect to me. Conversely, I am the receiver who wants to devour and use Him. I learn that our two natures, that of the Creator and the creature, are polar opposites. And when I compare myself to Him, I discover that there is an abyss separating us, because everything that exists in Him exists in me in the opposite form, like an imprint of a seal. And I am overtaken by shame! He is bestowing and full of love, while I am receiving and full of hatred…

This shame is unlike anything I have ever felt before – and it is the true creature. I have never sensed such a profound awareness of myself. I begin to regard His bestowal as good, and my reception as evil. But where is this measuring scale coming from? It didn’t exist in the Light! This is the true creature. It feels independent and separate from the Giver, and therefore, it realizes that it is opposite to Him.

This goes on until the creation comes to feel that it can no longer remain in this state; it cannot justify itself, and for this reason, it performs a restriction and expels the Light from itself.

This is Malchut of the World of Infinity, which suffers because it cannot be like the Creator – it cannot love like He does. That is why all the development following the First Restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph) ultimately brings us to love – to the same attitude as the Creator has for us. Everything stems from the action of the First Restriction, so much so that the decision to perform the restriction drives the whole universe and leads to its final correction.

Therefore, the sensation of shame was that “Big Bang” from which the whole universe had come into existence and traversed its entire path, down to our world and back up above.
The driving force of this development, causing reality to unfold from above downward and from below upward, is that very sensation of shame that was felt by Malchut of the World of Infinity. There is nothing else. It is like the Big Bang from which the universe was created and continues to expand evermore to this day.

All this transpires in the Malchut of the World of Infinity, which contains all nine preceding Sefirot.

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