Rabbi Adin Even-Israel (Steinsaltz) is progressing in his recovery from a stroke and has been moved from intensive care to a regular ward in Shaarei Tzedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, according to hospital officials.

His family confirmed that the rabbi—one of the world’s foremost Talmudists and Torah teachers—has been making steady progress. He was able to move both sides of his body late last week, and is now alert and responsive.

After being rushed to the hospital on Wednesday, the rabbi successfully underwent an angiography, and blood clots were removed.

While the family remains optimistic, they ask that the public continue to pray for their father, using the traditional formula of Rav Adin ben Rivkah Leah.

The rabbi, who was born in Jerusalem in 1937, has been hailed by Time magazine as a “once-in-a-millennium scholar.”

His career of writing and teaching began when he was still in his 20s, and has continued unabated.

Even-Israel, who changed his last name in 1991 from Steinsaltz at the suggestion of the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—is best known for his comprehensive commentaries on the Talmud and the Tanya, the foundational work of Chabad-Lubavitch philosophy penned in 1798 by the first Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi.

In 2012, he was one of six recipients of Israel’s first Presidential Awards of Distinction.

Two years later, in 2014, he published a long-awaited biography of the Rebbe, who had mentored him from when he was a teenager in the Chabad high school in Lod, Israel.

Please recite Psalm 20 and Psalm 80 for Rav Adin ben Rivkah Leah.