Originally published in Tzvi M. Rabinowicz (ed.), The encyclopedia of Hasidism (1996), p. 48. Annihilation of selfhood: the hasidic ideal of self-transcendence. In hasidic theory a person’s ego interposes a barrier between the real self and God. A saying attributed to R. Uri of Strelisk, for example, interprets the passage “I stood between the Lord and…