Baal HaSulam, Letter #16: …Therefore, before one goes out to make one’s daily bread, he should remove his thoughts from private Providence and say, “If I am not for me, who is for me?” He should do all the tactics applied in corporality to earn his living as do others.

But in the evening, when he returns home with his earnings, he must never think that he has earned this profit by his own novelties, but rather that even if he stayed all day in the basement of his home, he would still have earned his pay, for so the Creator contemplated for him in advance, and so it had to be.

So, why should a person make an effort for nothing if he would get everything anyway? The effort and the nuisance are required to correct the Shevira (breaking). In his perception and his destroyed Kelim, it seems to him that he indeed does the work and it depends upon his effort.

This is to say that the gap between the two principles of “If I am not for me, who is for me?” and “There is none else beside Him” is precisely the same Shevira. If we close and nullify the gap, then we would return to adhesion.

This is the meaning of the unification of HaVaYaH Elokim. HaVaYaH means private Providence, where the Creator is everything, and He does not need dwellers of material houses to help him. Elokim in Gematria is HaTeva [the Nature], where man behaves according to the nature that He instilled in the systems of the corporeal heaven and earth, and he keeps those rules as do the rest of the corporeal beings. And yet, he also believes in HaVaYaH, meaning in private Providence.

By that he unites them with one another, and “they became as one in his hand,” and thus he brings great contentment to his Maker, and brings illumination to all the worlds.

This is like a horse and its rider who adhere to each other with an inseparable connection so that the horse guesses in advance and moves according to the desire of the rider. That is how a person wants to feel, that all of his internal movements are directed by the higher power.

The person feels internal resistance from his desire, but is even happy for this resistance. This is because then he has the possibility of ascending above this resistance. If he returns himself to the same movements where he would be like a shadow to the Creator, happily and agreeably obeying His guidance, even though this is the opposite of his desire, then with this he corrects himself and gives contentment to the Creator.

The strength of his adherence is measured through this: How much are the actions of the person precisely adjusted? The actions of the person are accommodated to the Creator precisely in movement and in rhythm. In this way, the person attains the Creator and is aware of His providence and guidance throughout all of creation.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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