Kabbalah Teaches Us How To Receive In Order To Bestow
A question I received: How can the desire to receive take on the form of bestowal?
My Answer: In my desire to receive, I can only receive and am not able to give anything to anyone. I am not the source of delight or the Light, as it is only the Creator who bestows since He does have the Light. However, by receiving from the One who loves me in order to please Him, I become a giver! The action of receiving doesn’t change, since I, as a created being, can only receive. I am only adding a correct intention to my pleasure and it therefore allows me to fill another with delight.
However, the bonds of mutual love help me to convert the pleasure of reception into the means to bestow to someone else. This is just as a guest helps himself to a meal in order to please the host. The desire of another becomes primary for me, as I am then receiving pleasure in order to please him.
This is what Kabbalah teaches us; how to receive in order to become a giver.
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Please expand with examples on how in everyday life one transforms the desire to receive for oneself to the desire to receive in order to bestow. I am having a real hard time questioning my own motives even when I am seemingly doing a mitzvah – even something simple like Bikur Holim. Am I doing this to gain points? Who is deriving more pleasure from this visit: the sick person, who is doing me a favor really by allowing me to do a mitzvah? Or me because I actually feel good about myself that I had done this? It seems as if when the moment in which the idea to visit someone for instance arises, in that second I feel pure light, then the motives start inching their way into my thoughts – and I can’t tell anymore where this is coming from…