Know that our service during the seventy years of our lives is to be divided into four stages: First, to acquire the exaggerated and limitless desire to receive, with all of its defectiveness, from the impure system of the four worlds of ABYA. For if we did not possess this defective desire to receive, we could not repair it at all, since a person cannot repair what he does not contain.
Therefore, it is not enough to obtain the desire to receive that is inherent in the body of a newborn. We must spend no less than thirteen years to become a chariot to carry the husks of impurity, such that the husks shall rule over us and provide their light for us, since their light encourages the growth of the desire to receive. The husks expand the desire to receive, which grows. For example, a newborn wants only a small amount, but when the Other Side grants him that small amount, the desire to receive expands and he wants a large amount. When the Other Side grants him that large amount, the desire to receive expands further and wants even more. If a person does not overcome this through Torah and mitzvot, which help the person purify the desire to receive and transform it into a desire to give, the desire to receive will continue to expand over the person’s entire life, to the point that “a person dies with only half of what he desired” (Kohelet Rabba 1:13).