“Did you choose anything from the supermarket?” Steffen’s host asked.
“How could I decide?” Steffen replied with exasperation. “There are fifteen kinds of mustard!”
My friend Steffen was born in East Berlin, Germany. He grew up believing in the virtues of communism and learning about the evils of capitalism. These beliefs were not abstract; they were reinforced daily through education, messaging, and government propaganda.
In November 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, Steffen crossed through the Brandenburg Gate to see West Berlin with his own eyes. The contrast stunned him. “They lied to me my entire life,” he later told me. The world he encountered made clear that the system he had trusted was built on scarcity and control, while the world across the gate (Western capitalism) offered possibility, agency, and choice.
Determined to understand that world for himself, Steffen taught himself English and applied to Harvard Business School, which he viewed as the cathedral of Western capitalism. He was accepted, matriculated, and we became friends as section mates in HBS Section H. He also earned a distinction that remains unique: the only East German to attend Harvard Business School.
The supermarket moment occurred within three days of Steffen arriving in the United States for the very first time. Steffen’s employer for his pre-HBS summer internship was based in New York. His employer provided an apartment and took him to a local supermarket to stock his kitchen.
Steffen later explained why he froze in the mustard aisle. In East Berlin, supermarket shelves were almost always barren. If an item appeared, you took it. If there were two or three, you took them all. You never assumed it would be available tomorrow. Scarcity trains behavior. It trains you to hoard. Faith, by contrast, trains you to stop.
While reading the Torah portion describing the first Shabbat in the wilderness, shortly after the Children of Israel fled Egypt, I was reminded of Steffen’s story. Manna fell from the sky, providing physical sustenance. Shabbat provided spiritual structure. The instruction was precise: each person was to gather only one omer/portion of manna.
Those who gathered more discovered that it spoiled by morning. The lesson was not about food; it was about emunah. Trust meant believing that tomorrow’s provision would arrive tomorrow. Hoarding was not wisdom. It was fear, dressed up as prudence. During the week, manna demanded daily trust. On Shabbat, manna demanded structured restraint.
In the mustard aisle, Steffen faced a different test altogether: abundance without trust. Scarcity is an obvious trial of faith, but abundance may be the harder one.
This was the same challenge that paralyzed Steffen. He had never learned to trust replenishment. He had no lived experience of shelves that refilled themselves. Mustard—or manna—was never assumed to be waiting the next day.
On Shabbat, the rule changed. A double portion was permitted in advance so that gathering would cease. Faith did not eliminate preparation; it defined its limits.
When I was younger, I tended toward excess, often without appreciation. With time, I have found myself drawn instead to the small and the simple. It is hard to explain but easy to feel. A quiet gratitude has replaced urgency.
I can now imagine the daily wonder of the Children of Israel as manna appeared each morning, just enough—Dayenu.. I can recognize the same childlike awe in Steffen’s amazement at a shelf filled with mustard.
Faith lives somewhere between paucity and prayer. One portion. One omer. Enough for today and trust for tomorrow.
Empty shelves taught fear
Full shelves ask a harder thing
When is enough—enough?
Further Reading:
This meditation on manna and mustard echoes an earlier reflection, One Small Bite, where restraint itself becomes a form of gratitude.
