What does “I stand between Hashem and you” teach about the ego?

Rabbi Landau teaches that the words anochi omed bein Hashem u'veineichem, “I stand between Hashem and you,” are a teaching about the self. “It's the Anochi, the I, that stands between you and God.”

The barrier, in other words, is the ego. And the ego, he says, “is just your imagination of yourself. It's not something that can be touched, described, or even truly experienced.”

So the way through is not to wrestle with it. “You don't need to fix your ego. You need to realize it was never real to begin with.” Imagine a world without you, “not your name, not your role, not your story,” and what stood in the way is gone.

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

The “I” is what stands between a person and God.

What may be behind it

In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that the Tanya traces every bad trait to one source: the feeling of being a separate “something.”

Deepest human truth

What stands in the way was never real to begin with.

More questions from this teaching

• Why does the ego cause so much inner pain?