It's Saturday again, and men in wide-brimmed black payess and black suits covered by shawls pray eight deep at the Western Wall. They're on the men's side of the fence, and only a few women stand, reverent, in their partitioned area before the wall.
We wait with other tourists behind them.
Because we're in the courtyard before the Temple, and it's a Sabbath, we've been told to put away our pens and cameras.
"The devout Jew cannot write on Shabbat," Sol says. "You cannot work. You cannot do nothing if you are strict Orthodox. If you walk too far to the synagogue, then it becomes work."
He swings his arm toward the wall. "See the borders cut in the stones here. These are the same as you see at Zippori. They come from the time of Herod, before the Temple is destroyed by the Romans. This is the Wailing Wall because nothing else is left. It is the holiest part of the Temple Mount for the Jews."
He watches a young guard step in front of another tourist who is about to snap a picture.
"I show you the good place to take the pictures that don't bother nobody." He frowns at the tourist before he turns back to us. "But if you want to write the message and put the paper between the stones of the wall, you can go outside in the alleyway. There it is all right to use the pen."
"Isn't that a bit hypocritical?" Elizabeth smiles an innocent smile at him.
"I am not the strict Jew or I would not be bringing the tourists here on the Sabbath," he says sternly.
"I think I'd like to write a prayer." Rory nudges me since I'm the one with the pen and sketchpad.
"You'd think there'd be no room left to chink paper between the stones after all these centuries," James observes.
"Once a year they take the messages out and bury them on the Mount of Olives." Sol watches as I tear off slivers of paper. "The message is between you and God. You make the wish, the request, and you don't tell nobody. Nobody reads what you write."
"Like making a wish and blowing out the candles on a birthday cake," Elizabeth says brightly.
"But don't you think that's a bit superstitious?" She looks at Sol. "Do you believe in it?"
He gives his shrug."What can it hurt?" he says
