If Not Higher

From Saul Bellow's collection of traditional Jewish tales comes this story:

In a small Jewish town in Russia, there is a rabbi who disappears each Friday morning for several hours. His devoted disciples boast that during those hours their rabbi goes up to heaven and talks to God.
A stranger moves into town, and he's skeptical about all this, so he decides to check things out. He hides and watches. The rabbi gets up in the morning, says his prayers, and then dresses in peasant clothes. He grabs an axe, goes off into the woods, and cuts some firewood, which he then hauls to a shack on the outskirts of the village. There an old woman and her sick son live. He leaves them the wood, enough for a week, and then sneaks back home.
Having observed the rabbi's actions, the newcomer stays on in the village and becomes his disciple.
Whenever he hears one of the villagers say, "On Friday morning our rabbi ascends all the way to heaven," the newcomer quietly adds, "If not higher."

Citation: Jim McGuiggan, Jesus, Hero of Thy Soul (Howard Publishing, 1998),p.15.