Person · 5525–5587 AM · 1765 CE — 1827 CE
Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshischa רבי שמחה בונם מפשיסחה
an apothecary in German dress who became the rebbe of seekers
He passed his apothecary's examination at Lvov; he served the businesswoman Temerl Bergson, representing her timber trade. After the Yid haKadosh's death he took up his school: not wonders but honesty with oneself; not rapture but examination.
The famous "two notes"—in one pocket "for my sake the world was created", in the other "I am dust and ashes"—do not stand in his printed books: it is a tradition carried by late retellings, and we call it a tradition. The books of his students—Kol Simcha and Ramataim Tzofim—appeared after his death. His students were the Kotzker and the future author of the Chiddushei haRim.
On the timeline
Places
Related
The Yid haKadosh—Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchak of PeshischaThe Kotzker Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem Mendel of KotzkChiddushei HaRim—Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Alter
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Kol Simcha, Breslau 1859 — the teachings as the students set them down
Scholarship
- The standard reference works and the dynastic chronicles — the pharmacy, the fairs, "the little German" and the tradition of the two notes
Basis: Talmud and midrash.