Pure, unadulterated, boundless benefit. This generosity, may He be blessed and exalted, is the very foundation of creation.
And how do you bestow goodness? You need someone to receive it! So, souls were imprinted with a powerful desire to receive God’s shefa (שֶׁפַע) – that divine bounty, that overflowing abundance.
Think of shefa as light pouring into a vessel. That "vessel," in Kabbalistic terms, is the will to receive. But here's the really cool part: the size of the vessel—the strength of our desire to receive—determines how much pleasure we can actually experience from the shefa. The greater the will to receive, the greater the capacity for joy. It's like having a tiny cup versus a massive goblet; the goblet can hold so much more!
This connection between the shefa and the will to receive is incredibly tight. So tight, in fact, that they’re almost indistinguishable! The only way we can tell them apart is by understanding what they're related to. Pleasure, delight, that’s all connected to the shefa. And the will to receive? That's connected to us, the created beings who are doing the receiving.
Now, here’s where things get a little deeper. Both the shefa and the will to receive ultimately come from the Creator. But there's a crucial difference in how they come. The shefa emanates from God's very essence. It's yesh miyesh (יֵשׁ מִיֵּשׁ) – existence from existence. It flows directly from Him.
But the will to receive… ah, that's something else entirely. The will to receive, which is incorporated into the shefa, is actually the root of all created beings. It's the root of any new creation, and is an emergence of existence ex nihilo (yesh me’ayin – יֵשׁ מֵאַיִן) – from nothingness. You see, God’s essence doesn’t contain any trace of the will to receive. He doesn't need anything from anyone.
So, if the Creator doesn't have any aspect of receiving, how did this will to receive come to be? It couldn’t have emanated from His essence like the shefa did. Instead, it had to be created brand new, completely out of nothingness.
It’s a pretty radical idea, right? This notion that the very thing that allows us to experience God's goodness, that fundamental desire within us, isn't just a smaller version of something already within God, but a brand new spark, created from absolute nothingness.
Think about that for a moment. The potential for joy, the capacity for connection, the very essence of our being as receivers of divine grace… all of that originates in a moment of pure creation, separate from the divine essence itself. It’s a testament to the boundless creativity and generosity of the Creator, isn't it? A generosity that extends beyond even our wildest comprehension.