Pirkei Avot (Chapters of the Fathers) everyone reads. Hillel said right in the first chapter, "Don't make the Torah into a shovel to dig with." And in a later chapter when this saying is repeated, Maimonides has a long comment. That little juicy paragraph won a bitter and stinging crusade against him during his lifetime.
The only people I ever discovered that I could talk to about Trust in God and found that we were on the same wavelength were Reform and Conservative Jews.[ They usually coupled it with working, but the concept was clearly central to their way of thinking. ]
Trust in God was a major theme with the Gra. He said one that trust in God even if he does extremely major sins is better than one who is completely religious and does all the Torah and mitzvot but without trust-- because all his mitzvot are for honor and power.
And it is from the Gra that the idea of trust in God without doing anything gets a clear expression. Later the Madragat HaAdam brings it from him in his commentary on Mishlei. [That is the central position of the school of Navardok]
The Gra however did like the idea of people standing and learning Torah all day. [Not sitting and learning.]]
And as far as is possible for me to see, he did like the idea of these people being supported. So we have two things from the Gra-one is the learning Torah thing. The other is the trust thing. So what I suggest is to change the paradigm from that of learning Torah being a kosher way of making money [It is not.], to that of trust in God that if one learns Torah, then God will find a way to send to him his means of a living or someone to support him, but not that it is permissible to go out and seek such a thing.
