The Wonders of Harav Yitzchack Kadouri

61 The Rav traveled across the face of the globe and yet always prayed with a quorum of men, never praying alone. His son, Rav David, who ac- companied the Rav on all of his trips and never left his side, recounts: On one of our trips, the captain of the plane asked all passen- gers to sit and buckle their seatbelts, as they had encountered strong winds, whose turbulence made the ÀLJKW XQVWHDG\ ,W ZDV time to pray the After- noon Prayers, and the Rav said – let us pray, despite the warning of the cap- tain. Otherwise we will miss our chance (to pray.) We prayed as usual, and the storm subsided, as if it never occurred. In the presence of the Ben Ish Chai In his youth, the Rav merited to learn from one of the great lights of the Diaspora, the greatest of the sages of Iraq, Harav Yosef Chaim, known as the Ben Ish Chai . On the day of his bar mitzvah, the Ben Ish Chai (according to the Sephardic custom) placed the WH¿OOLQ (phylacteries) on the young Yitzchak for the ¿UVW WLPH LQ RUGHU WR KHOS KLP DFKLHYH SXULW\ RI WKRXJKW DQG IHDU RI * G WUDLWV which accompanied the Rav throughout his life. A century later, when the Rav was told about the museum for Jewish heritage in Ohr Yehudah, displaying artifacts from the Jews of Iraq, the Rav asked to be taken there. He was shown a miniature replica of the sy- nagogue of Baghdad, authentically duplicated with amazing detail. This was the synagogue in which the Ben Ish Chai would deliver his weekly GLVFRXUVH (YHU\ 6KDEEDW WKH Ben Ish Chai would speak pearls of wis- dom before a crowd of some ten thousand people . Harav Kadouri remembered the synagogue, including the very spot where he would sit and listen to the speeches of the Ben Ish Chai .