Question: Why did a person have more strength for giving before they came to “religion,” that is, before they acquired the right intention?

Answer: When the desire to receive is revealed to a person in the ordinary way, as it happens with everyone, the person sees that in one part of this desire they can receive, and in another part give.

In some cases, I derive pleasure from giving, and in others from receiving. In each person, these qualities are mixed in their own way; based on these we can tell whether a person is good or bad, whether their actions are wonderful or repulsive. However, all of a person’s desires, both giving and receiving, are directed toward their own benefit.

When a person begins to compare themselves with the true properties of bestowing, which are devoid of any intention for self-benefit, they evaluate everything very differently. Then, both acts of receiving and giving appear to one as essentially the same from the start, for they all serve the single intention: to receive. Consequently, they are all flawed. The person sees a twofold evil in themselves.

First, he previously thought receiving was normal and natural; now he realizes it is bad. Secondly, in the past, when he gave, he thought he was performing good deeds, he had motivation and a sense of self-importance; he felt like a worthy human being.

Indeed, we derive pleasure from giving; it boosts our self‑esteem, feeds our pride, and so on. Even the lowest, most terrible person experiences such feelings; it seems to them that they are giving up something for the sake of others. Now, however, he sees that what he deemed to be to his merit—acts of giving or expressions of his own humanity, was also for the sake of receiving something in return. Thus, a person becomes a villain twice over in their own eyes.

They feel that all their actions are bad, awful, and the urge to give something to someone feels even worse, which plunges a person into despair. Furthermore, beyond the all-encompassing intention to receive, even stronger desires are revealed to them. The person suddenly realizes they do not care about anything: let their children perish, let the whole world disappear, it makes no difference. Their ego is so locked within itself that it takes nothing outside the boundaries of his own body into account.

Then the desire to receive presents an even grimmer picture: they do not care about anything outside themself nor about what will happen a moment later. Let me perish in a second, I am alive until the next second and that is enough. The desire to receive focuses so intensely on this particular point—the present moment and only within itself—that this point becomes its absolute limit. A limit in both time and space.

Therefore, we reveal not how great our desire to receive is, but the extent to which it is locked within itself. It is endlessly absorbed in itself,indifferent to everything else! It is immense precisely because of this terrible quality of inwardly directed self‑sufficiency.

Then a person finds themselves in a state where they do not know how to escape this condition. They feel very bad. If they had simply acknowledged this within themselves without the accompanying realization of its nature, they would not feel anything negative; they would accept that is just how I am. We see that many people in the world commit terrible things, and they even feel better than those who seem to be doing good.

The problem is that when a person is about to “return to religion,” i.e., to acquire a middle line, to work in Daat, Tiferet, and Yesod, they see themselves as bad in relation to the surrounding light. They become split, experiencing a terrible feeling from comparing themselves to the standard, to the properties of the surrounding light. They simply go crazy; such moments are so intense. This is the beginning of the recognition of evil.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/12/26, Rabash, “One Should Always Sell Everything He Has and Marry a Wise Disciple’s Daughter”

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