In today’s Daily Zohar, we enter a beautiful and healing teaching from the Zohar in Parashat Pinchas, where Rabbi Shimon asks his students to open with a word of inspiration. Rabbi Elazar responds by highlighting the power of Ashrei—Tehillah Ledavid—which our sages say should be recited three times a day.

Why is Ashrei so central?

Because within it is one of the deepest foundations of spiritual life: the recognition that G-d sustains all worlds. The verse “You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living being” is not simply about material provision. It is about remembering that the Creator is constantly nourishing existence itself—our lives, our breath, our opportunities, our direction, and our inner world.

The Zohar connects this daily prayer to the flow of sustenance that comes from above. We say it in the morning and again later in the day because sustenance is not a one-time event. It is an ongoing relationship. There is our personal sustenance, and there is the sustenance of the world. There is what we receive inwardly, and there is what we are then able to bring outwardly.

This opens a profound spiritual principle: abundance begins within.

A person may outwardly have much, yet inwardly still feel lacking. One can possess wealth, opportunities, and resources, yet remain trapped in anxiety, comparison, striving, and the sense that something is still missing. According to the Zohar, this is not true richness. True abundance is the ability to recognize: I am being sustained right now.

This moment is already filled with Divine support.

The “food of the rich,” as the Zohar frames it, is not only physical provision. It is the consciousness of being nourished in the present. It is the ability to receive what is here now with gratitude, trust, and inner openness.

By contrast, the Zohar describes another state: a person who is full of desire, full of wanting, full of longing—but not yet in the vessel of receiving. They are always living in the condition of when. When this happens. When that opens. When I achieve more. When I finally get there. In that state, even if blessing is present, it is hard to receive it.

This is where the Zohar becomes deeply healing. It teaches that the root of sustenance is not only external. It is tied to our sense of worth, our openness, and our willingness to receive from the Creator.

When we pray “You open Your hand,” we are also asking:
Open my heart. Open my vessel. Open my ability to feel worthy of the blessings already flowing into my life.