meta

There are three primary metaphors that are used in Kabbalah and Hasidic thought and we will use the main examples of the teacher and the pupil which is in the Head 'Keter,' also the idea of Emotions the endless expression of the heart and in Action, having to hold that back what one says or does.
so these are the three different levels as we find self restraint or 'Ztim-Ztum' in the soul, the three different ways in which we can describe the Ten Sefirot
The first is that all Ten of these first proceed in order one circle with in the other the widest would be 'Keter,' the broadest down to a point Malkut ten concentric circles (circles) one within the other.
it is like the oppose of dropping a pebble in the water, the point where you drop the pebble into the water would be Malkut each of the ripples being the ten sefirot.

The second way is where we begin with the top property Keter but Keter sinks down is into and is absorbed into every other sefirot and become central to it, it can be understood similarly to the anatomy of the body where if we were to give it an anatomical analogy we would say it is like the nervous system, the nervous system stemming from the mind but it permeates the entire body and is carried through the entire body.
This particular quality comes down to all the other ones and they all proceed in their order but this on is always carried through each and every one of them.
It is called straight, the third one is according to the order of the ten levels normally etc…ten in a row, these are 3 different ways of arranging the ten, and the curious thing about each of these three different approaches is that they all have a different focus at there centre. To create the world God had to remove [so to speak] himself (self restrain) in order to create a "Challal" an empty space in which to create the world, and this point in which he 'vacated',- left empty accurse in the middle of these ten sefirot. Now depending on which of these three ways of dealing with the sefirot we enumerate, each one has a different middle -God can remove him self from either the beginning middle or end.

But lets find 3 places within our soul that we can understand our selves removing or holding ourselves back a little bit in order to create space for a world, some kind of creation: There are 3 metaphor that we can understand this with, the first is the parable of a Teacher and a student. And we find that at least according to the analogy, the intellect of the teacher is infinite in comparison to the student, the teacher understands the subject what ever it may be and it is totally beyond the comprehension of the student. If the teacher where to express to the student with all of the intricacies that he himself understands the subject, the student would have a mental brake down, smoke would come out of his ears he would be simply overwhelmed, and it could destroy the student's capacity to think.