Marnie Holland had been an academic prodigy, gone to college in her home town, Santa Barbara at 15. At 19 she discovered her Jewish background, completely changed course and began to study Judaism seriously,To continue her studies she went to Israel where she made a disastrous marriage to a somewhat older orthodox man older with two children. The marriage lasted barely three years. Forcibly separated from her stepchildren she left her husband, and, with the help of her parents ended it, but only after an official 'Jewish" divorce, a get, cost her father a great deal of money. No one in her present life as a Rabbi knows of this marriage. And Marnie knows nothing of some protections her father built into the marriage, things that have just come into play. When her ex, Shalom Gasith, who she is afraid of, arrives in Los Angeles, claiming he needs a regular divorce - an impossibility--she runs away to Israel, were her rabbinical class is having a reunion. This is a trip she would never have made because her ex lives in Israel. In Israel she meets a very unusual man, and they fall in love. Marnie is eventually freed from the secrets of her life and by the people she loves.