There are those who say that there are no coincidences in life. Seeing this article posted at jewschool may just make me a believer in that statement.

Let me start at the beginning. I have a close friend (in honor of Radiohead’s impending new album, let’s call this person “Yid A”) who is a prime example of the increasingly rare species Classical Reform Rabbi. A brilliant and die-hard rationalist (once engaging in a ten-minute classroom disputation on the merits of Kantian ethics with visiting lecturer Rabbi David Hartman), Y.A. lives according to the highest moral standards as exemplified by the biblical prophets. When it comes to the matter of food, my friend is consistent in her/his beliefs. Y.A. buys mainly organic and strongly supports her/his CSA, but wouldn’t blink twice at downing a (free-range) BLT with a glass of milk. Let me put it more bluntly - no student when we were at HUC gave more freely of their time and money to just causes; but Y.A. also went out of his/her way to find the one non-kosher butcher in Jerusalem to do her/his shopping.

I, on the other hand, belong to that more common species of post-modern, post-denominational, poster boy for the conflicted struggle of the Jewish mind, heart, and stomach. I grew up in a Reform household where ethics were of primary concern, but Jewish observance was still embraced, if somewhat schizophrenically (I remember many a ham-and-cheese-on-matzah sandwhiches during Pesach - no lie). I’m now the cantor at a Reconstructionist Synagogue, and haven’t eaten any traif since my year at HUC Jerusalem over ten years ago. When it comes to food, the struggles abound. Local or organic? Whole Foods or mom & pop? Free-range or kosher? Finding the rabbinic expansion of the original laws of kashrut to be biblically unjustified, I’ll still eat the occasional cheeseburger, but no pork or shellfish (or rabbit, or ostrich, or…). Maybe this makes me a Caring Karaite - but it’s a label (and a lifestyle) that I’ve been comfortable with for over ten years.

So here’s my dilemma. A week before Yom Kippur, I jokingly sent my friend, also a devout Dylan fan, a youtube link to a performance of a kippah-wearing Bob Dylan at a Chabad telethon. I didn’t realize the extent to which this would infuriate Y.A., and feeling the need to make amends so close to the holiday, I followed up by sending her/him this link to instructions for DIY gourmet bacon, which might make even a non-traif-eater’s mouth water, and half-facetiously told Y.A. that if he/she made it, I’d eat it. Word to the wise: never issue a challenge to a pissed-off Dylan fan rabbi a week before the High Holidays. Y.A. gleefully called me last week, just to let me know that she/he had started the multi-step bacon curing process, and to bring my appetite for brunch this Sunday.

Some of you may feel that I’ll need to atone more for the pun at the beginning of this post than any traif-eating I may engage in this weeked, but of course, as fate would have it, Kevin Bacon himself is playing a concert –in my home town!!– the day before I’ll be staring a plate of (humanely-raised) pork in the face, and deciding what to do next. Will I politely refuse, negating both my friend’s ardent epicurean endeavor and the vow I made to Y.A. right before Yom Kippur? Will I dig in, relish every bite, and then suffer from an acute case of traif-hangover guilt? Or will eating this home-made dish, surrounded by close friends and family, actually trigger a new, less-observant phase in my dietary practice? Only time will tell.