He came from a poor, fatherless family in a tiny village. He was barely five feet tall and his manner was as humble as his origins. What were the odds that Yisroel Meir Kagan would become the gadol ha dor? With eye-witness accounts from the people who knew him, Rabbi Wein weeds out the legends from the facts, producing a shining human portrait of a man whose Torah genius was only matched by his love for his fellow Jew.