Rav Refoel once came to the city of Berditchev, where he was greeted with much honor. Suddenly, he disappeared from sight. The people looked for him all over but could not find him. He had taken a bandana and wrapped it around his head and face so that no one would recognize him. He went to the marketplace and entered a store that sold garments, where he asked the shopkeeper, “Do you have any tobacco to sell?”
The man thought that he was mentally imbalanced and told him that he was in the wrong place.
He then went to a second and third store and put on the same act. Wherever he went, he was mocked and laughed at. Finally, the people who were looking for him found him surrounded by laughing shopkeepers. He said, “I was unable to stand the honor. I needed to get some bizyonos.”
