The plan of creation itself provides an answer, based on an understanding of the first stage. We had said that the plan [of creation] is to bring pleasure to creatures. It follows, therefore, that God certainly created a great and extreme desire to receive all of the positive influence that is present in the plan of creation. The great pleasure and the desire to receive are linked to one another (above, chapters 6–7).
We explained there that this great desire to receive is in fact all that God needed to create. Nothing else was necessary to accomplish the goal of creation, given that it is in the nature of the perfect actor [to act efficiently and] to do no unnecessary actions. As we say in the Shir HaYiḥud for Friday: “In all of Your labor, You forgot nothing; You left nothing out and added nothing extra.”