Although we wish to set the course of our own lives, we are often controlled by the circumstances that surround us. How true this was for Tzvi Apfel, a handsome shtetl Jew who loses his mother and is left with an ailing father amidst pogroms and looming anti-Semitism in Poland at the turn of the 20th century. As revolution transforms the land and its people and WWI, the "War to End All Wars," strikes like a burning torch, Tzvi is cast amidst world events. He wants no more than the love of his beautiful wife and a Jewish home. But his charisma forces him into leadership he never wishes for, across Siberia, into the gangs and labor struggles of Warsaw, and on to the fires of war. Over trials of life and war Tzvi learns how imperfect we are. How fragile. How we attempt to live our lives by high ideals. How much we miss the mark. How we seek to protect those whom we love and fulfill a multitude of obligations. A man, challenged by the times, he questions, why would God choose such an imperfect guardian.