The Wonders of Harav Yitzchack Kadouri

105 Ascending the Heavens The Rav’s prayers were something to see. All eyes would turn to the Rav, and in their hearts they hoped that in his merit, their prayers would be answe- red from Heaven. His ¿nger was always in the prayer book, never lifting his ¿nger or eyes from the place. He would sit and pray without visible emotion, sometimes appearing to doze off to sleep. In actuality, though, his soul expe- rienced an ‘ascension,’ as it migrated to the upper realms in order to lift up the prayers and requests of his congregants and followers. The Kabbalists have likened this to the ladder described in the dream of Yaakov, where Heavenly angels ascended and descended upon a mighty ladder which reached the very Heavens. So too, the Rav brought up their prayers to the upper spheres and laid them before the Heavenly Throne, pleading on behalf of each individual according to their needs. He then descended back to our temporal world, often with good tidings and a clear answer for each person. The cantor would wait patiently as the Rav to proceed. I, too, on many oc- casions waited for the Rav to descend, when I would of¿ciate and lead the prayers in the Rav’s yeshiva. Amazingly, the Rav’s ¿nger never moved from the place, and when he ‘awakened’ and returned to this world, he continued exactly from where he had left off. The power of his prayer just de¿es des- cription. My good friend, Harav Yosef Chaim Zakai shlita, relates the astonishment of the Rav’s close disciple, Harav Nissim Teherani shlita. He remembers how, not once, but many times, the Rav would experience an ascension during a learning session in the yeshiva. While studying dif¿cult and esoteric texts of Kabbalah, the Rav would grow silent and appear to be unmoving, almost in a trance, for even up to half an hour. This would happen in the presence of Engrossed in prayer at his lectern