If a person wants to cross the Machsom, he must leave his “self”: I do not exist; I am outside myself; I am leaving myself. Kabbalists do not speak or write much about this method of drawing closer to the higher degree and becoming similar to it because there is a danger here that people will be carried away into all kinds of fantasies and illusions and begin imagining that they are already floating somewhere out there, though no one knows where or how.

Such imaginings may be practiced only together with actions within the group, through joint actions in relation to the friends. Simply sitting and fantasizing about these matters is not recommended because it would be an action detached from reality, carrying you somewhere unknown, and where you would eventually find yourself would be impossible to know.

But imagining oneself as leaving one’s “self,” I do not exist, I am present in the thoughts and desires of others and act only in accordance with their thoughts and desires—is our very first exercise. As soon as a person becomes capable of performing such an action upon himself, he begins to sense the others rather than himself. He begins clearly to see one single force throughout the world that governs everything.

Why does he begin to sense this? Because he has left himself, become included in this force, adapted himself to it, and united with it, since its principal quality is also the absence of a “self.” Then the person sees that absolutely all people in the world—the wicked and the righteous, the capable and the foolish, the savage and the civilized—all simply carry out one thought.

No one has any personal desire or personal movement; everything is determined by one intention, which simply exists in the world like a field. Everything and everyone move only in accordance with it.

Each person is a mechanism that operates in a state of maximum fulfillment with minimum expenditure. And this mechanism automatically takes its place each time, acting in accordance with this field.

This field is called the Creator. More precisely, it is not yet the Creator, but the manifestation of His governance in relation to all those who are in this world. A person begins to see that everything operates according to one law, one rule, one will. To the extent that, he has shed his “self,” he unites with this thought and this will and wishes to enter further into the Creator’s field, he begins to see how everything in relation to him becomes good.

Naturally, nothing changes in relation to him; he simply begins to see how good it truly is. He sees that everyone else carries out this thought because his thought and the Creator’s thought have merged into one. He sees that everything in the world is done for his sake and for his benefit.

And even if, in his opinion, something harmful is happening, he still understands that it is not bad; it is simply impossible to act otherwise in the states in which people find themselves. Therefore, he approves of and understands them so completely that even if someone were to approach him and threaten his life, he would be unable to oppose him with anything. He loses his “self” to such an extent and feels that everything happening around him is absolutely correct.

I give such extreme examples, which are not yet entirely clear to us, only so that they may give us some understanding of what it means to rise a little above the Machsom. They are intended to let us sense, at least slightly, this boundary crossing from there to here, and back again.
[362183]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 9/29/26, Sitrin Convention, Sukkot 2003

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Crossing Machsom

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