LOVE IS BREATHING ROOM
Why being alone feels cramped, and why relationships feel like oxygen
To receive Light, you need a place to put it. This place is called the Vessel (Kli). But every Vessel is defined by its emptiness.
When you are alone, you experience yourself as a Private Vessel. Think of it like living in a tiny, cramped studio apartment inside your own ego. It is small. It is limited. And because it is small, the feeling of “I need something” is sharp and painful. You feel the walls closing in.
The Expansion
When you enter a relationship, a structural change happens. You stop being a closed unit. You become a shared system. The very act of letting someone else in knocks down the walls of your studio apartment. Suddenly, the room gets bigger. The Vessel Expands. This expansion allows more Light to enter. You feel a sense of “Wholeness.” Not because the Light changed. But because you finally have enough room to breathe.
The Real Wholeness
But here is the catch: True Wholeness doesn’t come from the amount of Light you get. It comes from Matching Frequencies (Hishtavut Tzura) with the Source. The Source is pure Giving. When you are stuck in “Me, Me, Me,” you are disconnected from the Source. That feels like loneliness. When you move to “Us,” or “You,” you start to vibrate at the frequency of Giving. That feels like connection.
The Difference Between Love and Addiction
The Zohar describes a Coupling (Zivug)—a spiritual union.
Natural Level: “I love you because you make me feel big.” (This is still about my reception).
Spiritual Level: “I love you because together we create a space for the Divine.” (This is about our creation).
The Litmus Test
How do you know which one you have? Check what happens when they leave.
Dependency: If the relationship ends and you feel like you are disintegrating—like you physically cease to exist—it means you were using them as a structural wall. You didn’t have a self; you had a lean-to.
Wholeness: If the relationship ends and you feel pain but not collapse, it means your Vessel is solid. You miss them, but your house is still standing.
The goal is to build a structure that stands on its own. Then, a relationship isn’t a crutch. It is a cathedral.
Translated from the Hebrew Transmissions of Ruth Kedem
BLOCK 2: ORIYA’S NOTE
We confuse “Love” with “Relief.” When you are single, locked inside your own head, it feels claustrophobic. It’s a “Private Vessel”—a 200-square-foot studio apartment of the soul. You bump into your own neuroses. You trip over your own needs. It’s tight.
Then you meet someone. And suddenly, it feels like they knocked down a wall. Now you have 400 square feet. You can breathe. You can stretch out. The relief is so massive that you say: “I love you.”
But often, what you really mean is: “I love the extra square footage.”
This is why breakups feel like suffocation. It’s not just that you miss their jokes or their smell. It’s that the contractor came back, put the wall back up, and forced you back into the 200-square-foot studio. You are hyperventilating because the room physically shrank.
The text says: “If in the absence of a relationship you disintegrate, it is a sign the wholeness was external.” The work is to renovate your own studio before they arrive. Knock down your own walls (Ego). Build an extension (Faith). Make your own internal space huge. Then, when they come in, they aren’t your oxygen tank. They are just the person you want to share the mansion with.