The Wonders of Harav Yitzchack Kadouri

202 By praying for the return of the Jewish nation to the glory which was once theirs and the end of the exile, all of our per- sonal needs and requests will be taken care of. Along these lines, the Talmud states, “One who prays for his friends needs is answered ¿rst.” Grieving for he who is no longer with us It was late at night when I returned home from the funeral. Exhausted from crying and deeply saddened, I lay on my bed, unable to fall asleep. How could we have lost this great tzaddik? Who can comfort us? Who can replace him? We are like orphans. Pictures of the day’s events Àashed through my head. A half a million people participated in the Rav’s funeral, escorting him to his ¿nal resting place. The sound of the large crowd saying together, “Shma Yis- rael” and “The Lord He is G-d” as Rav Yaakov Sayag lowered the body of the Rav into the ground, still reverberated in my mind. The crying and weeping of the crowd led me to imagine the response of the angels to the people’s accep- tance of G-d’s sovereignty, mimicking their words, “The Lord He is G-d” in the Heavenly realms. I could still hear the broken cries of Rav Yaakov Adess as he said, “G-d is King,” the mufÀed kaddish said in memory of the Rav, and the eulogy of Rav Mordechai Eliyahu who described the Rav’s attributes. It seemed as if there was not a single Rabbi in the whole country who didn’t turn out to pay their last respects to the Rav. Everyone loved him. How hard it was to fall asleep that night!