He leads us, almost at a trot, through the ruin of Qumran.
"In the first century B.C.E., the Essenes leave Jerusalem because it is too commercial, so they come here to make the Torahs."
He urges us into the outline of another collapsed room. "This is the scriptorium, where they do the writing of the Torah. The Torah must be perfect. It can have no blemish, so if the copier gets even one drop of sweat on the scroll, he must start over with the new scroll."
No one asks if the months other than August are any cooler in Qumran.
"The good Jew must read the Torah three times a week. But each time he finishes, he don't stop. He reads another page. Since the Bible is unending, the good Jew knows that he is reading the circle, not the end of the story."
We file behind him, and the square stones of the square rooms of Qumran begin to merge with all the other rubble we've seen.
"All the material of the Torah must come from the animals, so the Essenes must work the leather for the pages and use the veins to sew the sheets together into the scroll."
"The scroll we saw yesterday was made of leather?"
"Naw. It is made of plastic. You would not expect to see the real scroll that is coming from here in a jar. The electric lights fade the letters, and it is not good to ruin the authentic scrolls only for the tourists to look at, so the museum makes the copy."
Behind me I hear Rory sigh.
Sol doesn't hear or chooses to ignore the sigh. "At Qumran is much fresh water, and-"
"There's fresh water this close to the Dead Sea?" James says behind his camera.
"Of course. Every place you see the rushes as we drive to get here is the fresh water. The desert animals all come to drink, and maybe on the way back, we see the ibex coming for water. The ibex is the beautiful animal."
