[Avodah] RSRH on Earning a Livelihood

[Yitzchok Levine]

We are all aware of what is going on today with 
the economy. Indeed, the financial situation of 
many is precarious. Others, who are presently ok, 
are worried about what will happen to their financial situation.

In Parshas Beshalach RSRH discusses what our 
attitude toward earning a livelihood should be 
from a Torah standpoint. The selections below are 
taken from his commentary on Shemos 16 : 2

“The provision of one’s daily bread
is more difficult than the splitting of the Red Sea” (Yalkut Shimoni,
Yeshayahu, 474). The threat of hunger — real or imagined — undermines
all principles and rescinds all noble resolves. As long as a man
cannot disengage himself, not from the responsibility to provide for his
family, but from the overwhelming anxiety resulting from this responsibility,
he is unable to fully realize God’s Torah.

Freedom from this overwhelming anxiety comes only with the deep
awareness that concern about one’s livelihood, the foremost among all
human concerns, does not rest — not even primarily — on man alone.
He must realize that toward this end, too, man can and should do only
his part — namely, what God expects him to contribute toward the
achievement of this objective. As for the success of his efforts, he must
leave that to God, Who watches over every household and every single
human soul and extends His mercy to all His creatures. Man must
realize that his work for his livelihood is not a privilege [with which
one is endowed], but a duty [with which one is charged].

As long as man is not instilled with this awareness; as long as he
feels that it is he and he alone who, with his limited powers, is bound
to the yoke of earning his livelihood, there is no end to his anxiety.
This anxiety is likely to turn his world into a wilderness, even if he
dwells in the midst of civilization, where there is much wealth but also
much competition. His anxiety can make him believe that he must
secure not only the morrow, but his whole future, and even that of his
children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. This belief goads him
into an endless and ruthless pursuit of greater wealth, leaving him no
time for the pursuit of other aims and goals.


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