1. Yitzhak Kaduri taught and practiced the kavanot of the Rashash.
24 Facts About Yitzhak Kaduri
1. 2.
Yitzhak Kaduri's amulets were distributed to voters before the Israeli election in May, 1996, in exchange for their votes for Benjamin Netanyahu and the Shas party.
3.
Yitzhak Kaduri's funeral, held in Jerusalem, drew over 200,000 followers.
4.
Yitzhak Kaduri's father, Rabbi Kadhuri Diba ben Aziza, was a spice trader.
5.
Yitzhak Kaduri was a child student of Rabbi Yosef Hayyim and studied at the Zilka Yeshivah in Baghdad.
6.
Yitzhak Kaduri moved to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1923 and there changed his name from Diba to Kaduri to honor his father whom he had left in Baghdad.
7.
Yitzhak Kaduri went to study at the Shoshanim LeDavid Yeshiva for kabbalists from Iraq.
8.
Yitzhak Kaduri later immersed himself in regular Talmudic study and rabbinical law in the Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem's Old City, where he studied Kabbalah with the Rosh Yeshivah, Rabbi Ezra Attiya, Rabbi Saliman Eliyahu, and other learned rabbis.
9.
Yitzhak Kaduri was reputed to have photographic memory and mastered the Talmud by heart, including the adjoining Rashi and Tosafot commentaries.
10.
Yitzhak Kaduri knew all the writings of Rabbi Yitzhak Luria, the founder of modern Kabbalah by heart.
11.
Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri did not publish any of the works that he authored on Kabbalah; he allowed only students of Kabbalah to study them.
12.
Yitzhak Kaduri did publish some articles criticizing those who engage in "practical Kabbalah", the popular dissemination of advice or amulets, often for a price.
13.
Yitzhak Kaduri had learned the Kabbalistic secrets of the amulets from his teacher, Rabbi Yehuda Fatiyah.
14.
Many people directly attributed personal miracles to receiving a blessing from Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri, such as recovery from severe illnesses and diseases, children born to couples with fertility problems, finding a spouse, and economic blessings.
15.
Yitzhak Kaduri's rise to fame, though, began when his son, Rabbi David Kaduri, who ran a poultry store in the Bukharim Market, decided to found a proper yeshivah organization under his father.
16.
Yitzhak Kaduri's followers believed that he was able to predict events.
17.
In late 2004, Yitzhak Kaduri said "Great tragedies in the world are foreseen" two weeks before the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami; reporter Baruch Gordon of Arutz Sheva connected the two by saying Yitzhak Kaduri predicted the tragedy.
18.
Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri achieved celebrity status during the 1996 Knesset elections when he was flown by helicopter to multiple political rallies in support of the Shas party, and for amulets that were produced in his name for supporters of that party.
19.
Yitzhak Kaduri ate little, spoke little, and prayed each month at the gravesites of tzaddikim in Israel.
20.
Yitzhak Kaduri remarried in 1993 to Rabbanit Dorit, a baalat teshuva just over half his age.
21.
In January 2006, Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri was hospitalized with pneumonia in the Bikur Holim Hospital in Jerusalem.
22.
Yitzhak Kaduri was alert and lucid until his last day.
23.
Some of his followers said that he left them a hand-written note and they were reportedly instructed to only open the note after Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri had been dead for one year.
24.
Yitzhak Kaduri confirmed that the first letter of each of the Hebrew words in the note spells Yehoshua, the Hebrew name of both the biblical Joshua who was the disciple of Moses who led the Israelites in their conquest of Canaan; as well as Jesus of Nazareth.