I think Rav Eliezer Shick must have been aware to some degree of the problems involved with התבודדות. (That is a practice of talking with God in one's own language. This might include prayer but most often simply means talking about one's problems.) One thing you can easily see in his writings is the idea of unifications of the Ari.[[Issac Luria]]
So even if he did not say so openly his must have been aware that introspection of one's self can cause insanity.
That is he certainly saw the importance of prayer and talking to God in one's own language and asking him for help and thanking him for his blessings. Still there is the danger of just talking with God as a friend can get to be just going on and on about one's miserableness and state of affairs.
And besides that he had been learning the Ari. So at some point he realized the unifications of the Ari were just the thing to be doing while spending time with God as a kind of Dekakut [attachment with God in fulfillment of the verse ולדבקה בו].
This seems to me to be an important point. In fact I had been looking at the Ari [Issac Luria] for some time before I got to Israel but did not see how unifications were practical. So Rav Shick's approach to this was an eye opener for me and that is in fact what I spent a lot of time doing In Safed.
Still I should mention I am not overly impressed with Rav Shick. To some degree, I see him as setting a stumbling block in front of people. Going into places where people were learning Torah and getting them involved in the books of Reb Nachman had the effect of getting people to throw away their Gemaras and stop seeing learning Torah as the highest ideal. Plus many many other problems that came along with the whole business, Still from Rav Shick's approach I learned some very important lessons.
Appendix:
Note 1: Unifications is a subject that comes up mainly in שער רוח הקודש. You really do not see it in the עץ חיים itself of the Ari except as simply giving over the different Divine names that are in the interior of each world. And even that he does not get into until Volume II of the עץ חיים.
In any case what Rav Shick noticed in the book of Reb Nachman in Vol I ch 2 was a hint to a simple way of doing unifications. Reb Nachman simply mentioned the 686 lights (תרפו אורות).
Rav Shick realize at that point that simply concentrating on the 686 lights was easy to remember and also provided a way to be thinking about God all the time without the general problem of moaning and groaning about one's problems that even when done in talking with God generally causes a kind of insanity.
Note 2: In short the 686 lights are these:
יוד הי ויו הי
יוד הי ואו הי
אלף הי יוד הי
אלף הא יוד הא
אלף הה יוד הה
So even if he did not say so openly his must have been aware that introspection of one's self can cause insanity.
That is he certainly saw the importance of prayer and talking to God in one's own language and asking him for help and thanking him for his blessings. Still there is the danger of just talking with God as a friend can get to be just going on and on about one's miserableness and state of affairs.
And besides that he had been learning the Ari. So at some point he realized the unifications of the Ari were just the thing to be doing while spending time with God as a kind of Dekakut [attachment with God in fulfillment of the verse ולדבקה בו].
This seems to me to be an important point. In fact I had been looking at the Ari [Issac Luria] for some time before I got to Israel but did not see how unifications were practical. So Rav Shick's approach to this was an eye opener for me and that is in fact what I spent a lot of time doing In Safed.
Still I should mention I am not overly impressed with Rav Shick. To some degree, I see him as setting a stumbling block in front of people. Going into places where people were learning Torah and getting them involved in the books of Reb Nachman had the effect of getting people to throw away their Gemaras and stop seeing learning Torah as the highest ideal. Plus many many other problems that came along with the whole business, Still from Rav Shick's approach I learned some very important lessons.
Appendix:
Note 1: Unifications is a subject that comes up mainly in שער רוח הקודש. You really do not see it in the עץ חיים itself of the Ari except as simply giving over the different Divine names that are in the interior of each world. And even that he does not get into until Volume II of the עץ חיים.
In any case what Rav Shick noticed in the book of Reb Nachman in Vol I ch 2 was a hint to a simple way of doing unifications. Reb Nachman simply mentioned the 686 lights (תרפו אורות).
Rav Shick realize at that point that simply concentrating on the 686 lights was easy to remember and also provided a way to be thinking about God all the time without the general problem of moaning and groaning about one's problems that even when done in talking with God generally causes a kind of insanity.
Note 2: In short the 686 lights are these:
יוד הי ויו הי
יוד הי ואו הי
יוד הא ואו הא
יוד הה וו הה
אלף הא יוד הא
אלף הה יוד הה
