Before R’ Simcha Bunim of Peshischa became a Rebbe and a leader (following the passing of his predecessor, R’ Yaakov Yosef, the “Yid hakodosh” of Peshischa), he was engaged in business. To all appearances, he was a regular businessman; - in fact, he spent much time and effort to bring Jews he encountered to teshuva.
Once, there was a group of young Jews that he had befriended, and he was trying hard to influence them to increase in their Torah observance. They had taken a liking to him as well, and they wanted to influence him as well. They felt bad for him, being so old-fashioned and narrow-minded (and probably lacking an adequate secular education...), and they wanted to make him more worldly.
Finally, they offered him a deal: They would put on teffilin (as he was requesting of them), if he would agree to accompany them to the theater. They felt if he would only get a bit of a taste of olam hazeh, he would be able to have a better appreciation of it.
Now, I don’t know what any of us would do if faced with such a deal, but R’ Simcha Bunim was extremely eager for them to perform mitzvos, and he was prepared to accept any sacrifice upon himself for the sake of that goal, so he agreed to their conditions.
On the agreed-to date, they went together to the theater, purchased their tickets, and took their seats. But, not long into the show, they were surprised to notice that R’ Simcha Bunim was missing. Alarmed, they went out to search for him, and found him lying on the ground, in a dead faint, by the entrance to the building!
They hurried to revive him, and asked him what had happened to him. “It’s very simple”, he explained, “I went into the building, and it was dark, and there were many candles lit, and people dressed in white were going to and fro (on the stage), so the first thing that came to mind was that it must be Yom Kippur! And I was filled with such awe, that I fainted!
I don’t know if I can expect that we should go into a sushi bar, and suddenly get choked up because the shape of our sushi roll reminds us of the shofar of Rosh hashonoh, or that we should go whale-watching in the Bahamas, and fall into the water because the whale reminded us of the whale from maftir yona and filled us with trepidation.
But we should be able to expect that we should come into shul on Rosh Hashono and look in the machzor and hear the shofar and be reminded – at least by that – about the awe of the yomim nora’im, about the “tamlichuni Aleichem”.
[And we should definitely be able to expect that our experience in shul on Rosh hashono shouldn’t become a reminder, that triggers our memories of the fun time we had scuba diving in the Carribean Islands...]
