Life is a Trip by Judith Fein

his importance?” I asked.
    “Moses could do many things,” the High Priest explained. “He put his hand i n side his shirt, and when he pulled it out, the hand had lepr o sy. Then he stuck it into his shirt again, and it came out clean.”
    “What about the five Hebrew words Moses used to cure his sister Miriam of leprosy?” I asked excitedly. “I’ve thought about those words many, many times. Would you agree they can be used for hea l ing?”
    He nodded.
    “And is it true that the words mean ‘Please, God, heal her, please,’ but they can be used to heal a man as well?”
    “Yes,” he replied. “The words of the Torah cannot be changed. So they’re used for men as well as women. Also, healing takes place in the soul, which is feminine. For those reasons, the words pertain to men as well as women.”
    High Priest Elazar proceeded to give me a rather complex numerological ana l ysis of the five words. Apparently, he had also thought about Moses’s healing words many, many times. It created a bond between us. The High Priest thanked me for asking such meaningful questions. He became less formal. Friendly, actua l ly. I pinched myself. There I was, on chatty terms with the revered icon.
    He mused about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. He explained that Israe l ite Samaritans cover their faces when they say the names of the foref a thers, because they are so holy. He gently ran his open hand, palm fa c ing inward, over his eyes to illustrate what he meant. I was hyperventilating with excitement. I felt as though time di s solved and I was in the desert, engaging with someone from the family of Moses.
    He spoke about the revered matriarchs of the Bible, the ten plagues, and the golden calf. He made the events seem as though they had happened yesterday or perhaps a few years ago. We chitchatted about Joseph’s dream interpretations, N o ah’s ark, and Lot’s wife who looked back when she should have looked forward. In the course of our conversation, he mentioned something about a camel.
    “Ah, camel,” I said. “I once ate one in a Bedouin tent. It was tasty, actually.”
    The High Priest stiffened. He set his jaw.
    “You ate camel?” he asked me, incredulous.
    “Sure. I guess you could say it was like very tender roast beef. Soft and succ u lent. A bit of a meaty tang. You should try it sometime if you get tired of chicken,” I joked.
    The color drained from the High Priest’s face. It drained from the face of the deputy High Priest. It drained from the faces of the High Priest’s family.
    “You ate camel ?” the High Priest repeated. The words bounced off the walls and slapped me in the face.
    “I shouldn’t have eaten camel?” I asked in a small, insecure, parched voice.
    “Eating camel is worse than eating pig!” pronounced the religious potentate.
    It was at this moment I knew I had crossed a line. I wasn’t sure where the line was, but I was on the other side of it. The Samaritans are all extremely observant and one hundred percent kosher. They won’t even eat certified kosher food outside of their homes in Israel or America because it’s not kosher enough.
    “I didn’t eat a lot of it,” I said, trying to backtrack. “Maybe half a camel steak. Probably more like a third. I’m sure I didn’t even like it. I left a lot of it on my plate. I just pushed it around with my fork and sort of pretended I was eating it. Now that I think back, I probably spit it out.”
    The High Priest shook his head. I heard him talking about penitence—that I would have to do something to atone. I looked around the room, drowning in a sea of disapproval.
    I fumbled inside my beige leather bag and extracted my see-through wallet. All eyes were on me. I rifled through my money and came to a bill that was given to me for luck during a classical opera in North Vietnam.
    “Please, take this,” I said, proffering the bill. “It has brought me a lot of good fortune. Now it’s yours.”
    “Thank you,” he said. “I