Resnick

We must decide whether prison officials unconstitutionally infringed an inmate’s First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion by requiring him to fill out a standard prison form in order to receive kosher food.

I

Herman Resnick is an Orthodox Jew who has been incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary at Lompoc, California (“Lompoc”), since January 1998. According to the dictates of his faith — specifically the laws of the kashruth 1 — Resnick must maintain a kosher diet. Lompoc, like all *1058 other federal prisons, accommodates the religious dietary needs of its inmates through the Common Fare Program (“CFP”). See 28 C.F.R. § 548.20 (a) (“The Bureau [of Prisons] provides inmates requesting a religious diet reasonable and equitable opportunity to observe their religious dietary practice within the constraints of budget limitations and the security and orderly running of the institution and the Bureau through a common fare menu.”). The general parameters of the CFP are set forth in section seven of Program Statement Number 4700.04 (“P.S.4700.04”), which was issued by the Bureau of Prisons on October 7, 1996. P.S. 4700.04 provides that “[t]he Chaplain is the…