Miriam lives a secret life throughout her entire marriage to Saul, trying to fulfill the religious idea she learned from him, "tikkun olam," or "repairing the world" and "reuniting its shards." In momentary flashbacks by Miriam, we glimpse a scene of a crashed car with shattered glass, apparently the basis of an underlying hurt she has been suffering since childhood, perhaps the death of her parents. The beautiful life she had before the accident, symbolized by the kaleidoscope she always carried as a child, through which she was presented with its beautiful view of the world, is suddenly shattered when the accident occurred. Thereafter, seeking to restore the broken shards, Miriam compulsively creates beautiful light gathering objects (sometimes stealing them) and storing them in a secret warehouse.