There is no algorithm for when one should make effort to get his needs and when one should sit back and trust in the Divine decree. But the closest I ever got to some kind of resolution about this was Rav Nahman of Breslov in the LeM vol II. Chapter 4. that one should make a vessel in which the blessing can flow into.
Even in open miracles in the Bible there is always some physical action attached in the same way. Some action by which the blessing can come into the world. E.g. Elisha the prophet telling Neeman the Syrian general to immerse himself in the Jordan seven times in order to be cured.
[I have to add that the only time that trust in God was a real possibility for me in terms of restraint from action was at the Mir in NY for the short time I was there as a student and married. It seems to me the fact that the general atmosphere was such that trust in God was a possibility. A kind of group dynamics. When everyone else was trusting in God, it made it a greater reality for me. And in fact it worked. The more I ceased from action and chose to sit and learn Torah and trusted that God would do everything for me that I needed, the more it happened just like that.
Even in open miracles in the Bible there is always some physical action attached in the same way. Some action by which the blessing can come into the world. E.g. Elisha the prophet telling Neeman the Syrian general to immerse himself in the Jordan seven times in order to be cured.
[I have to add that the only time that trust in God was a real possibility for me in terms of restraint from action was at the Mir in NY for the short time I was there as a student and married. It seems to me the fact that the general atmosphere was such that trust in God was a possibility. A kind of group dynamics. When everyone else was trusting in God, it made it a greater reality for me. And in fact it worked. The more I ceased from action and chose to sit and learn Torah and trusted that God would do everything for me that I needed, the more it happened just like that.
