David is a smart and sensitive boy who is frequently ill due to an injury suffered as a newborn: a deviated septum caused by a fall onto the stone steps of their apartment as his parents were bringing him home from the hospital.

The two families resist making such a drastic change and ultimately decide not to leave Poland, but the final member of the Society arrives in America just before the stock market crash of 1929.

After the crash, the society's finances are decimated, its members scatter to more affordable areas of New York, and Max sinks into a depression, feeling that he has made a terrible mistake in encouraging everyone to move to a land that is seemingly no longer prosperous.

David perceives an edge of anti-Semitism in many of these works, but finds it difficult to ignore the scholarly arguments these authors are making.

David's ultimate destiny is to become a Bible scholar who is still a person of faith -- to employ modern methods to make a new beginning for his people.