Earning a Living — Earning a Life

Parshat Va’Eira 5767 — January 14th, 2007

Essay #18

Divine Providence and Hishtadlut (Our Efforts)

In the last few essays we have learned how we can draw Divine Providence. God is always focused upon us, and we have to learn how to focus upon God. When we do so, we create the vessels with which to draw the bounty that God’s Providence continually sends our way.

In another lesson, Rebbe Nachman speaks about Divine Providence and nature (Likutey Moharan II, 17). He explains that absolutely everything falls under God’s direct Providence. Nevertheless, God created something called "nature" to make it seem as if there is a separate force called “the natural order” or “natural occurrences.” This separate creation gives man an "out" in case he does something wrong, since God always wants to look at the good in man.

Let's understand how this works. When a person acts righteously, then of course Divine Providence is invoked. God directs His sight upon that person, and the person directs his focus towards God. This invokes further Divine Providence, with God sending down blessings to the person, who in turn praises and thanks God, which causes a further revelation of Divine Providence.

But what if a person errs—or worse, sins? This disrupts the cycle of Divine Providence, since the person was not focused upon God. Essentially, this revokes Divine Providence, which would certainly interrupt a person's ability to receive God’s blessing and leave him without any means to receive bounty. Therefore God created nature, allowing the possibility of a “natural order” to take over. Left to the devices of nature (or to his “own” devices), a person can still receive blessing, albeit in a “natural” way. When he repents for his misdeeds, he will certainly return to the shelter of Divine Providence.

However, Rebbe Nachman concludes, we really can’t understand this idea too well. After all, even “nature” is part of Divine Providence!

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The upshot of the Rebbe’s lesson is that Divine Providence governs everything. Since that's the case, why should we have to go to work and labor so hard in order to bring home our livelihoods? Think about the fact that God fed manna to several million Jews in the desert every day for 40 years. The most “difficult” effort a person had to put into receiving the manna was to walk a couple of blocks to pick it up. And that only applied to the sinners! The righteous had their portion of manna delivered right to their tent step!

No one had to work for 40 years. No one planted or harvested crops, bought or sold goods, or needed a lawyer, accountant, hospital or auto-repair shop. There were no Shop Rites (they had manna), water-bottling plants (the “rolling stone” accompanied them throughout their sojourns), dry cleaners (the Clouds of Glory cleaned and pressed their garments like new), or, for that matter, weavers, tailors or seamstresses. It was like living in a banana republic, just without the bananas and without the republic (i.e., a government that taxes every banana).

Instead, for 40 years these Jews, the people of the Dor De’ah (the Generation of Knowledge) ate, drank and lived under direct Divine Providence. For them, the manna descended daily—with a double portion on Friday and Festival Eves—to meet each person’s daily needs. Certainly, God could have saved everyone the trouble and sent the manna weekly, monthly or yearly. But the manna descended daily to make the Jews stay in close contact with their Source of bounty and turn to Heaven every day to ask for their livelihood. This was Divine Providence at work. God looked to give bounty, and the Jews searched for it with their daily prayers, completing the cycle of Providence.

We too can draw this Providence today. How? Our Sages teach, “The Torah was only given to those who ate the manna.” Reb Noson explains that one who lives with the same trust as the Dor De’ah, looking for his needs for today without worrying about his needs for tomorrow, is also eating manna!

* * *

True, most people aren't capable of such deep faith. To think only of today’s needs and not worry about tomorrow's, one must somehow ignore all the bills, mortgage payments, medical expenses, school fees and money needed for Shabbat and Festivals. Moreover, every expense has a way of coming up just when we need the money for something else. How do we focus? How can we focus—especially if we have erred or sinned and disrupted the cycle of Providence?

Here is where Rebbe Nachman's teaching about a “natural order” comes into play. God does not need us to work in order for Him to provide our sustenance. (The reason man has to work is to elevate the sparks of holiness, as explained in Essays 3-6.) G="d" created the entire world by Himself; He doesn’t need our contribution. But when we err, we have to correct our mistakes.

To help us, God places us under the "natural order" and leaves us to our own devices. The system of nature makes us think that our hishtadlut (our own efforts) make us successful. Had we been left to Divine Providence, we would have received punishment, but under a natural order we might yet succeed. Therefore, our hishtadlut provides us with a means to receive God’s blessing, and breathing room to understand that we are in need of His Providence. When we return to God, we can once more receive our blessing directly from his generous and bountiful Hand.

God willing, in the coming weeks we will expand these thoughts on hishtadlut and explore what type of work we can and should engage in to draw the most blessing.

Have a great week.