The issue of trust in God is not as clear as I would like it to be.There does not seem to be any formula that you can plug in the question "In this situation should I do action or trust in God to take care of it?" The reason why there is no formula I think is that there are levels of trust. If one trust with more strength, then things work out better.
That seems to be what the Gra means in his commentary on Proverbs 3. וסוד העניין שתהפוך לבך לבטוח בה' בכל ואז יברך ה' אותך בכל.

The issue of Rav Avraham Abulafia seems to me to be important. [He was a well known medieval mystic who was quoted extensively by Rav Haim Vital and the Remak [Rav Moshe of Cardoba known as RavMoshe Cordovaro".]
I discovered him originally in the microfilms in the basement of Hebrew University, but since then all his books were printed.
Obviously his major thesis about the importance of unifications [thinking and saying of the Divine names] is known but there are many other very interesting side issues he brings up that are worthy of attention.

The thinking and "intending" of Divine Names for me was a very major issue at one time since I was praying with the Sidur of Sar Shalom Sharabi and his grandson. That is the small three volume Sidur HaReshash [in red] and the large Sidur HaReshash.[The large one five volumes was written by the grandson.]  [That is usually not around but I found someone who lived at the very edge of Mea Shearim who sold it to me.]

The smaller Red Sidur Hareshash as far as i know was printed in Aram Zova [Syria] and is not the same as his grandson. Rav Mordehei Sharabi said the small one has mistakes. [None of which I found but after he said so I assume I must have missed them.] In any case, the larger one is much more reliable.  [There are major differences, but as for mistakes? I have no idea what Rav Mordehei Sharabi meant.]]

Rav Nahman of Breslov

  The fact that Rav Nahman of Breslov had some statements about Torah scholars who are demons certainly was not just an abstract idea with no relevance to action. Rather he certainly meant this to be a starting point assumption until you know differently. That is, in order to be safe, you assume this as your starting point. And then if after careful investigation you discover differently, then OK.

But there are plenty of other important principles in the works of Rav Nahman.

The main ones are private conversation with God constantly, learning by saying the words as fast as possible and going on, and the well known Tikun HaKlali. [That is a correction of sexual sin by saying ten psalms 16,32,41,42,59,77,90,105,137,150]. But other good advice does not diminish from the value of even one piece of good information about the problem of Torah scholars that are demons which one ought to assume from the start until proven otherwise. I mean to say that his suggestion here is that one ought to assume all to be guilty until proven otherwise.


[It is constant in Rav Nahman's writings these points. However to my own satisfaction, I have seen the importance of the Gra, Rav Israel Salanter and Rav Shach. In fact, I would highly recommend that basic straight Torah path to others also. That is more or less what is called the "Litvak Yeshiva Path"]

And idea of Rav Nahman of Breslov

The difficulty that Rav Nahman points out about תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודאיים ל''מ חלק א' סימן י''ב [Torah scholars that are demons\] is hard to understand because from the general approach in the LeM [his major work] it does not seem that he is warning about any other group so severely. It must be he saw more danger in this group than any other group.

And this warning comes up in many other contexts in his LeM. [But not in his other books. I.e he has four all together. The LeM, the Conversations of the Ran, the Hayee Moharan, and the 13 Stories.]
The reason this does not come up in the less formal "conversations" is that it was too politically incorrect. They were deleted. However in the Hashmatot ("left out parts") that were collected by Rav Shmuel Horwitz they can be found. [They were printed just once and were in the Breslov book store on Rehov Salant for a short time.] 

music file w51

D Major w51  [mp3]   w51 in midi format

group think is automatically is invalid and an indication of falsehood.

In Southern California it was generally thought that the fact that everyone thinks one way is more of an indication that they are wrong. That is to say that group-think is automatically assumed to be invalid and an indication of falsehood.

This goes with a general American trait of distrust of experts.

So what Americans do with questions in which that come up that they have no experience in?   They would look at the type of credentials if relevant to the question at hand.

This was the basic cause of the Renaissance. While on one hand the Feudal system was necessary for civilization to start over after the fall of Rome, still at some point the system seemed useless in dealing with the issues of the 1200's and 1300's. So people started thinking in terms of the value of extremism. Not a synthesis of faith and reason.  Not the value of fitting in. Rather the opposite. The value of thinking differently.
 The problem in the USA today is group-think.

Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind says there is some kind of impasse that is inherent in the very foundations of the USA itself. Some problem that started at the very core of the Enlightenment. Throwing out Kings and Princes and Priests and placing "the people" or intellectuals had its own cause of different kinds of problems. Not the same kinds. The only way forward is not by "group think".

[He does mention Kant and Hegel, but from what I can see he thought both were on the side of the Enlightenment, and not exactly the way forward.]

If Allan Bloom is right then this time period is that of a great opportunity of going further or going backwards into the cave of Plato and extinction. Mad Max. What I think is a remnant of people will go forward, while many (and maybe even most) will fall back into darkness.

[It is curious why after going through all the contradiction of Enlightenment versus Anti Enlightenment that Allan Bloom stops right at Kant and Hegel. Why did he not go on?]

I do however have a few suggestions for going forward.
(1) Learning Math and Physics according to two principles. Saying the words as fast as possible and going on until one finishes the book. Then go back and do it again 4 times.
Also learning in depth which means review.
This does not depend on IQ, since it is a part of simply learning Torah which.
In terms of learning Torah the best idea is to go the same thing with Rav Shach's Avi Ezri.
(2) In terms of Political Theory I think the founding fathers of the USA got it right --as well as can be done.
(3) But one's focus ought to be on personal improvement. The Ten Commandments. Not correcting the world.
(4). Trust in God. Even if one goes with trust with effort still not to overdo the effort thing.
(5) Self sufficiency. Not to depend on handouts.
(6) Rav Avraham Abulafia's books [from the Middle Ages] I think are important.

Freeman Dyson's book on Advanced Quantum Mechanics I tried getting through twice. But there is a second half in which he derives the results of Schwinger which I found very hard. [He was in the news because he died yesterday so I was reminded that I probably need to get through his book a few more times.]