Sol is saying, "I am Jewish, but I know well all religions, and I know that traditions have lifes of their own. I am guide for thirty years, and I do not dispute beliefs or practices."
Elizabeth looks up from the guidebook she thumbs through as he talks. "But you were trained as a teacher. How can you not educate?"
He looks in the rearview mirror. "Some people get educated, some not. I tell the traditions that make good sense, but-"
He shrugs.
"The Torah says not to eat pig, not to eat rabbit. In ancient days when cooking is hard, when to boil the meat you drop the hot stone in a basket of water, pork is not getting done, and the people is dying of trichinosis. In those days you skin a rabbit, a bone goes in your fmger, you get tularemia and die. So it is not good to eat pig or rabbit."
"Those don't exactly sound like acts of faith," Rory says.
Sol shrugs again. "It is the same in much of Jewish law. We do the shiva for the week after the person dies, and then we go to the grave a year later, after a year of the shabon. It is good for the family to take something to the grave to show respect. But when the poor cannot take the flowers or the gifts and still feed the children, then the families don't go to the graveyard. So the High Priests say to take a stone to the grave instead of expensive presents. Everyone can pick up the rock and obey the law, so it becomes the remembrance. That is the act of faith."
