On the one hand, Barnaby Sandwich believes that we will all face a terrible judgment someday for the modern methods of pig farming; on the other hand, bacon gives him an erection. When he feels more than usually torn between the twin horns of this dilemma, he takes his breakfast at the B & H Dairy Restaurant on Second Avenue, where he can enjoy his feta omelette and pineapple juice safe from the alluring, satanic smell of frying meat.

Another thing about Barnaby is that he believes, in common with most great men, that conversation is disturbing to the digestion, and he therefore takes his meals alone; and when he takes his lonely meal at a counter, sitting cheek by jowl with an East Village tattooist—or slummer from Scarsdale, or tourist from Orkney, or whoever it might be—he wields a book to shield him from conversation. But sometimes his shield fails him.

On a recent Sunday, Barnaby was in B & H, halfway through his omelette, enjoying his regular Sunday morning fantasy of dressing down the President (“No, I don’t think you’re doing a swell job, you crackpot, incompetent son of a bitch, and let me tell you why!”), when he heard the words “Excuse me.” They seemed to have been spoken very nearby.

Barnaby continued eating.

“Pardon me,” the same voice said, in the broad, plum-edged accent of a man who has carefully read, re-read, and underlined his copy of Tom Brown’s Schooldays.

Barnaby cleared his throat, and wished that whoever was being addressed would answer this persistent, plummy fellow, so that their conversation could be begun, conducted, and finished, and leave Barnaby to continue his fantasy dressing down. (“Have you any conception how blasphemous, sir, is your grandiose want of humility? God chose you, sir? Repent, you crypto-fascist lizard! You murderous toad—repent!”)

“I say,” the voice reiterated, and now it was accompanied by a tap on Barnaby’s shoulder. Barnaby glanced to his left from the corner of his eye, without stopping chewing, or turning his head, and saw that he was being addressed by none other than Salman Rushdie, president emeritus of the PEN American Center and all around toast of the town. Salman did not seem to have touched his kasha varnishkes.

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” said Salman—a patent lie—“but I couldn’t help but notice the title of the book you’re reading, and I’ve always had a question.”

Barnaby glanced at the cover of the book he was not actually reading to remind himself of the title. It was Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism, a collection of essays by Emmanuel Lévinas, a vertiginous mixture of the brilliant and obscure. Would Salman have a question about French phenomenology? A question about Lévinas’s bold contention that despite the many brave acts of many brave Christians, in toto the Holocaust had demonstrated the failure of Christianity in Europe? Or a question about the fundamental paradoxes and sublime mysteries of the concept of free will? No—of course not!

“In Jewish law,” said Mr. Rushdie, “is it true that you can get a divorce if one partner cheats?”

Something that has always perplexed Barnaby is how so many otherwise cosmopolitan men and women, who live in heavily Jewish New York City, never quite grasp the idea of the secular Jew. On 47th Street, a Jew in a beard, a hat, and a long black coat in the middle of August—he knows something about Jewish religious law! He can answer your questions! In B & H Dairy, on Second Avenue, hatless, and in a purple jumpsuit—and on Erev Yom Kippur, no less—Barnaby Sandwich cannot.

Nevertheless, Barnaby believes very strongly that even he, as a circumcised member of the tribe, albeit an assimilated one, is called to be a light unto the nations, and so when he is asked a question, however strange, even though he does not know the answer, he tries to come up with something.

“Uh, probably,” he said. “I guess so.” Mr. Rushdie stared at him hopefully for a moment, and then his face fell.

“No, no!” he said, punching himself in the stomach, and slapping his own cheeks, “that came out wrong! What I meant to say was, is it true that the woman can get a divorce if her husband can’t bring her to orgasm?”

Barnaby put down his book, removed his purple velvet handkerchief, mopped off his forehead, sighed, rubbed his eyes, and squeezed the bridge of his nose. He answered with his eyes closed.

“My understanding,” he muttered, “is that a Jewish man is mandated to ‘satisfy’ his wife, with a frequency inversely proportionate to the level of physical exertion of his employment; but what ‘satisfy’ means exactly, I don’t know, and how you would prove it is also . . . uh . . . I mean, no one’s going to go sit there and, uh, you know, so it comes down to a ‘he said, she said’ sort of a . . . except that, anyway, traditionally the woman has no recourse, which causes problems even today in the Orthodox community, because if a man won’t give a woman a bill of divorcement, then even though they’re separated, and divorced according to civil law, any subsequent relationship that she has will, uh . . . you know . . . but whether, uh . . .”

Barnaby trailed off; stopped dead; nodded his head firmly; picked up his book; and continued eating his omelette. So far as he is aware, Mr. Rushdie left without eating his kasha. And for the record, this is how Barnaby finishes his fantasy dressing down of the President: “And in sum, sir, I would pray for your sake that the Christian mercy you pretend to subscribe to does, in fact, exist, because I shudder to think of even a vile specimen such as yourself enduring the quantity and depth of suffering that any impartial cosmic justice would, according to your sins, be compelled to pour down upon you! Amen!”

Here’s to a peaceful 5767! L’Shana tova!