Set in seventeenth-century Poland, The Slave tells the poignant story of Jacob, a young Talmudic scholar sold into slavery after the Chmielnicki massacres. Jacob, a slave and cowherd in a Polish village high in the mountains, falls in love with Wanda, his master's daughter.

Even after he is ransomed, he finds he can't live without her, and the two escape together to a distant Jewish community. Racked by his consciousness of sin in taking a Gentile wife and by the difficulties of concealing her identity, Jacob nonetheless stands firm as the violence of the era threatens to destroy the ill-fated couple.