It is Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish New Year and Day of Judgment – in Moscow during the Stalinist purges of 1936. In the Lubyanka secret police prison, senior investigator Grisha Shwartzman realizes that the Soviet system he has faithfully served is murderously corrupt and that he himself will be the next victim – but not an innocent one. In despair, he flees to his home, where his deranged wife and a letter from his father-in-law, the enigmatic Krimsker Rebbe in America, await him. The Day of Judgment proves to be a startling experience as Grisha, the once idealistic radical, judges himself and is guided to sublime passion and possible redemption by his mad wife.

In 1942 a train imprisoned Jews leaves the Warsaw ghetto for resettlement in the East . It is Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement and the holiest day of the Jewish year. In a crowded cattle car stands a lonely, defeated individual who cannot even remember his name. During the tortuous journey Yechiel Katzman meets a dull-witted giant who turns out to be ltzik Dribble, also from Krimsk. As they arrive in the death camp of Treblinka, Yechiel remembers not only his name but also the Krimsker Rebbe’s prophetic curse, which exiled him from Krimsk 40 years earlier. Yet as death approaches, that curse will prove a blessing. Stalin and Hitler decree certain death, but Grisha and Yechiel discover Jewish fates. Grisha’s Soviet Rosh Hashanah and Yechiel’s Nazi Yom Kippur are truly Days of Awe . Even when death is certain, life can be lived.