Ohr Chozer — Reflected Light

The light a masach itself generates by blocking direct reception — struck back "upward," toward its source, by the act of restriction, exactly the way a real screen or mirror reflects light rather than absorbing it. It is ohr chozer, not the original descending light (ohr yashar) directly, that clothes and measures how much of the original light a vessel is then permitted to receive — the reflection comes first, and only afterward does the direct light have anything to clothe.

⭐⭐ THE ANSWER TO "WHERE DOES A RECEIVED BLESSING ACTUALLY COME FROM." Not from the light simply arriving in greater quantity, on this system — from the vessel's own reflected act of restraint, which is the whole reason intention (ms-lishma) is not a moral nicety layered on top of the mechanism but the mechanism's own working part.