Sonia, both attractive and self-determined, supresses her wandering soul under a gentle marriage to the promising young scholar Mendel and their infant son. Upon Mendel's appointment to a prestigious Yeshiva, the young family is folded into Brooklyn's Hasidic community. Sonia moves uncomfortably within the crowded community; strangely solitary but for the companionship an omnipresent Beggar Woman, and the aparition of her young brother Yossi, who died during their childhood. Mendel's close-knit family includes his firmly grounded sister Rachel and an entreprenurial brother, Sender. While the cloistered community fuses Sonia into its tapestry, Sender recognizes that Sonia shares his common desire to be a free-spirit.