Instead, he explains, HaShem created everything with the utterance of the first word בראשית and only perfected and arranged everything each on its appropriate day. This is like one who builds his palace first by preparing all of the raw materials and only then putting each stone in its proper place.
He proves this from the text: בראשית ברא - in the beginning HaShem created. ששת ימים עשה - six days He established the heavens and the earth. The act of creation was at the beginning, all the rest of the time was a matter of establishing each created thing its place.
In honor of the hillulah of the Ohr HaHayyim today, I'd like to develop this idea and apply it to us in our daily lives. We are commanded to work for six days, and rest on Shabbath, the seventh day. Just as the six days of creation were involved in establishing everything as it had already been created earlier, so to it is our job to establish and order everything HaShem gives us, so that it will all be complete for Shabbath. We don't need to worry where the raw materials will come from, we don't need to worry about our livelihood. That has already been created by HaShem, we only need to worry about putting our livelihood to good use.
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