According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, initially, only the Creator existed—the will to bestow and to fulfill. In order for Him to be able to realize this desire, He created the will to receive, to be fulfilled. This is the matter of creation.

As a result, the entire universe consists of two opposite qualities: the will to bestow, to fill, to love, the qualities of the Creator, and the will to receive, to fill only oneself even at the expense of others, the qualities of creation.

The will to receive does not have to bestow in order to change and become similar to the Creator. It cannot emanate anything from itself. But it can receive in order to bestow like a child would eat to please his mother, and although he receives physically in action, he is actually bestowing as he acts in order to please her. We do the same with respect to the Creator.

We receive everything from Him, but if we restrict ourselves and agree that we will receive only in order to bring Him contentment, then we become the bestowing ones, equal to the Creator. He bestows upon us because He is the very quality of bestowal, we receive with intention to bring Him contentment, and then we are equal to Him.

The equivalence of qualities with Him reveals the Creator to us, and we begin to feel Him, understand, explore, and be in absolute contact with Him.

So, the Creator has only the will to bestow. The creation has both a will and an intention: the will to receive and the intention “for my own sake” or “for the sake of others,” including “for the sake of the Creator.”

By altering one’s desires from bigger to smaller and one’s intentions “for one’s own sake” or “for the sake of others,” a person can raise or lower oneself relative to the Creator, come closer or move away from Him. In this case, the intention changes the essence of the action itself. That is the point of our correction.

We cannot change the action, but by changing the intention from “for our own sake” to “for the sake of others,” the meaning of our action can change to the opposite and become bestowal instead of reception. If I receive from the Creator in order to bring Him contentment, then I am considered to be the one who gives Him pleasure, that is, the bestower.

This is how we begin to understand our work: by correctly combining the will to receive with the intention to bestow, a person correctly forms himself, adjusts relative to the Creator. This is called working in three lines.
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From KabTV’s “Conversation about The Book of Zohar”

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