How does one pass on a sacred tradition? The question presses on Jews and Christians, and pulls both into the throes of a paradox. The only way to preserve the wisdom of the past is to make room for adaptation and change in the pres-ent. The hallowed traditions of our ancestors are maintained when allowed to speak in new ways to new generations. A tradition that permits no change is a tradition that drives into the future relying exclusively on the rear view mirror. Yet how can a religious community think a new thought and engage in a new conversation without compromising its integrity? The ICJS lives in the midst of the struggle to balance our particular allegiances with the unprecedented demands of the present for the sake of the welfare of God's future and our own. The educational ventures described in this issue of The Institute move onto the sharp edges of this challenge, most especially the Jewish Scholars Project. For five years, the ICJS has worked closely with a distinguished group of Jewish scholars and together we have jumped onto the high wire. To con-template the magnitude of this endeavor, I have returned to a well-known story in the Exodus saga that was the focus of one session in the ICJS Congregational Project.

You know the scene. Moses is up the mountain, and according to the rabbinic sages, God is laboring to teach Moses how to read and interpret Torah. The people below are aching with the apprehensions of children who feel abandoned by their father. To reassure themselves that there is a way out of the predicament, they fashion for themselves a substitute, a pro-tector, an idol, a Golden Calf, indeed, a replacement for Moses. This object offers them the comfort of a fetish. They are able to project their needs, fears, and desires onto this "thing." It is the way infants remain faithful to their original attachment. They lose themselves in a fantasy of their own making, forget themselves, and so give themselves to the oblivion of dance. So begins Avivah Zornberg's ingenious interpretation of Exodus 32.

Now here is the moment. God sees the debacle unfolding and informs Moses in verses 9-10, "I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation."

It is an offer not easily refused. The promise to take Moses and make a nation of him of course harkens back to the prom-ise given to Abraham, while the threat to destroy this people puts Moses in shoes once worn by Noah. Noah, you remember, says nothing when God threatens destruction, and his silence may have led to the devastation of the flood. Thereafter, God and Noah have nothing more to say to one another. Ironically, the relationship was broken by Noah's refusal to speak on be-half of himself, his family, or his neighbors -- by his refusal to argue with God. In contrast, Moses hears an opening in God's words. And Moses responds, not just on behalf of the people, but on his own behalf. Moses knows that the human capacity to forget is grievous in its enormity. He also knows that he is inseparably bound up with this people and that sooner or later he or his ancestors will end up in the same predicament.

Zornberg argues that Moses listens to God and hears in God's tone a deeper desire. God does not want to be left alone. God does not wish to return to a primordial state of solitude, despite the ostensible meaning of God's plaint. Why? Because God does not want to bring ruin on the people and negate the possibility of a covenantal partnership. To enter the heart of God's declaration, Moses needs to listen and to read beneath the literal surface of God's spoken words. Yet to discern God's longings, Moses must not only attend to God; he must listen to his own yearnings. In other words, the possibility of a relationship with God depends on Moses' willingness to argue with God in the light of his own deepest desires. It is precisely this capacity that prevents the slippage into idolatry. This is the requisite aptitude for reading and understanding Torah.

Now here comes the kicker. Moses comes down the mountain with the tablets written front and back in God's own hand. He sees the people enjoying themselves, wild in dance, and totally incapable of breaking free of their self-absorbed and self-contented intoxication. And he does the extraordinary. He smashes the tablets on the ground. Why? To be sure, he is outraged. But there is more to this fit of anger. He knows that the tablets can also be turned into an idol, a misleading and dangerous fixation. According to the rabbis, God was pleased by this iconoclastic intervention.

I often wonder where we live in this story. When I see the abuses of our sacred traditions, the unholy allegiances and idolatrous attachments advanced by religious demagogues, political opportunists, and the snake-oil salesmen on Madison Avenue who promise happiness and do-it-yourself spiritual en-lightenment, I think that we are challenged to break open the holy treasures handed down to us.

Yet most of the time, I think we live at the base of the moun-tain among the scattered fragments of God's broken Word. Here, among the ruins, the Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies gives shape to a new educational vision. We are con-structing a creative relationship on the conviction that Jews and Christians can learn from one another new ways to engage their own traditions. Together we might discover that all we have are sacred fragments and that we each hold something that the other refused, neglected, or dropped. As we each rummage through our attics, we may discover that we have much more to discuss than we imagined. We may yet discover how to argue reverently with the other, with God, and with ourselves. Indeed, the ICJS Jewish Scholars Project suggests a possibility once utterly unimaginable: Jews and Christians discovering that they can pursue learning that enables each of them to understand better who each is called to be and what each can do to mend God's creation.