Tzimtzum: The Jewish Practice of Making Space
Taking up too much space—existential space, not physical space—from those around us is something many of us do unintentionally. We might think we are being helpful, but when we impose too much of ourselves—whether by talking over someone, offering too many ideas and solutions, or not listening humbly to how others feel or think—we are taking up too much space.
When I married my husband, Yair, I thought I knew what a good marriage should look like. I didn’t expect a fairy-tale version of marriage—after all, I wasn’t a child. I expected a version of my parents’ marriage: a solid, respectful, and long-term marriage, with a mutual commitment that puts family first. “Let’s have a great, strong marriage,” is what I said to Yair, though there was no space in my mind to consider any way of being married other than like my parents.
And so, I entered married life assuming that I had all the answers to how our relationship should be. Every time there was conflict or tension between us, I expected Yair to behave the way he “should” based on the model I had in my mind. And if he didn’t react or behave as “expected,” I found myself disappointed, hurt, or angry. “Stop comparing us to your parents,” he would say. “You can’t assume that just because your parents have a good marriage, you know it all. You don’t and we are not them.”
He was right. After years of trying to impose my vision of marriage onto him, onto us and—in many ways—onto myself, I realized that I hadn’t left any room for myself and Yair as a couple to establish our marriage. I hadn’t made space for us to establish our way. We needed our own methods for dealing with conflict, for solving problems, for navigating life together. I hadn’t left anything for us to work out together.
Why do we always feel the need to shout the loudest, to solve all the problems, to make it all about us? Because of fear. We are so attached to our ego, so afraid that something will harm us, that we consider our own survival above anyone else’s. We want to assert our knowledge, show our experience in any given situation. We don’t want to appear ignorant or uninformed. Maybe we take over the conversation as a way to control its outcome. Perhaps we choose to hear what we want to hear, rather than listen with curiosity and empathy, because we fear we won’t approve of the other opinion. We fall in love with our own ideas, we think we know what’s right. And so we don’t leave space for others.
Taking up too much space doesn’t necessarily mean being loud or intrusive. It just means we’re trying to dominate through our presence—and that we might not be leaving enough room for others to grow, shine, make mistakes or, sometimes, just speak. This way of being doesn’t allow for diversity of opinions and voices. It seriously limits how far a conversation can go and how much a family or a team can progress, learn, or grow. As I said, this was something I struggled with in the early days of my married life. That was until I learned about the Jewish principle of tzimtzum.
In Hebrew, the word tzimtzum means “contraction” or “concealment.” The concept itself was established by the 16th-century mystic, Rabbi Isaac Luria, known as the Arizal, and documented by his dedicated disciple, Rabbi Chaim Vital, in the classic Kabbalistic text, Etz Chaim. According to Torah, before the creation of the world as we know it, everything was filled with Ohr Ein Sof. Literally, this Hebrew phrase means “light without end” or “infinite light.” Before anything else existed, there was God, filling everything with His infinite light, leaving no vacant space. There was no beginning, no end, no boundaries or limitations, only one singular, seamless light—everywhere, everything—filled with the capacity to create.
But if God fills everything and is Himself everything, if all space is filled with the Ohr Ein Sof, how could He create something new? There is no room for anyone or anything else. Where would human beings go? And animals, plants, oceans, and rocks? Where would the sun fit? And the moon? The answer is that God wanted to make room for all these things, so He contracted part of His light to make space. That is tzimtzum—the practice of contracting yourself to let something else grow in the newly empty space. When God did this, a world was born.
Tzimtzum is such an inspiring idea and it offers us an opportunity to shift the way we think about our presence. It teaches us the power of restraint, and it helps us discover the potential of giving others the space they need. Tzimtzum shows us that, if we learn how to take up less space for ourselves and make more space for others, our sense of fulfillment, joy, and meaning doesn’t diminish—it increases.
When I was a child, nightmares were a regular occurrence. I’d walk across the corridor to my parents’ bedroom, where the door was always open. I never made a noise or tried to wake them up, I just stood there, in front of their bedroom door. My mother would look straight into my eyes and, without uttering a word, shuffle closer to my father’s side of the bed to make space for me. As I crawled in next to her, still shaken from the nightmares, I knew that I had nothing to worry about. I would simply fall asleep. No words needed to be said, and we would never speak of it the next morning. She just made space for my fear and, in doing so, she made it go away. I stopped when I began to feel my other’s strength and confidence while still in my own bed. And I knew there was always space for me next to her if I needed it.
Being present with your child, life partner, friend, colleague, or neighbor doesn’t mean that you have to take up all the space you can. You don’t have to make your presence obvious or dominant. There is another way of bringing ourselves into important relationships: We can actively and deliberately choose to take up less space, to contract ourselves at certain times and make space for others by limiting something of ourselves, our influence, our control. This does not mean that we will undermine ourselves, that we will “lose” any of ourselves. On the contrary, when we surrender the need to show the world how much space we take up, it is a sign that we actually feel more complete and comfortable with who we are. And the more we feel comfortable in our own skin, the less space we will need to take. Concealing can be just as impactful as revealing, if not more so.
You could get more out of tzimtzum than you give away. Because the paradox of making space is that, by contracting yourself, you are even giving yourself room to grow. And if you are one of life’s people pleasers, someone who feels like they have to fix everything and be everything to everyone, tzimtzum will be even more liberating. You don’t have to be in full control. You only have to give space.
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Excerpted from What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid? reprinted by permission of DK, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2021 Michal Oshman.
Michal Oshman is the head of company culture, diversity, and inclusion at TikTok. This is an exclusive excerpt from her new book, What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid?: Discover a Life Filled with Purpose and Joy Through the Secrets of Jewish Wisdom.
