At the bakery, Ara was used to seeing the finished loaf first. That day she traced back the time before it reached the shelf. She thought of the person who milled the wheat, the one who brought the flour, the baker who kneaded and baked the dough, and the worker who put the loaf on display. Think one step further back from something you take for granted and you may find someone to thank.
A modern interpretation for this story
A question to take with you
What’s one thing I got easily today, and whose work helped it reach me?
Share the question together with a link to this story.
About the source and this adaptation
In the Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 58a:3, Ben Zoma sees a crowd from a stair on the Temple Mount and recites blessings. In the next section, he contrasts the many steps Adam had to take to eat bread, from plowing and sowing to milling, kneading, and baking, with waking to bread and clothing already prepared. The wisdom line paraphrases the passage about bread. The bakery scenes and Jin and Ara’s dialogue are modern fiction created with AI assistance.
