As a participant in the ICJS Consultation on Seminary Educa-tion, I was delighted to study with and learn from scholars and seminary administrators who share a commitment to educating Christian and Jewish seminarians about the history, thought, and experience of "the other" through a historical critical approach and in light of new scholarship. The Consultation renewed my faith that we can celebrate our differences as well as our shared commitments and grow together through dialogue and scholarship. And grow we did.

Two moments of important professional and personal learning, neither of which I could have anticipated, stand out in my mind. First, I was struck to discover that many Jewish seminarians, regardless of denominational affiliation, struggle to overcome what they perceive as a poor, even abusive, treatment of the Shoah in their early religious education and as part of the Jewish communal agenda of the past several decades. As a result, they either attempt to improve upon the Holocaust education that has preceded them or avoid such education altogether, or they resign themselves to utilizing the old, ineffective pedagogy with which they are so familiar, even if resentful of it. Before rabbis and Jewish educators can ef-fectively educate about the role of Christians in the Shoah or the impact of the Shoah for contemporary Christianity, Jews must grapple with how best to teach the Shoah itself. It is my hope that Jewish seminary educators can address this challenge so that rabbis can present the Shoah free from the ambivalence that many seminarians seem to bring with them to their rabbinic training.

In another moment of learning, I was profoundly affected by an observation made early in the Consultation by a Christian seminary faculty member regarding the reaction of the Jewish community at the time of the split between Judaism and Christianity. In a large group discussion on Acts 15, someone suggested that the Jews of the first centuries of the Common Era were probably "relieved" that the early Christians broke off from Judaism given the great controversy among the Jewish followers of Jesus themselves and the challenges early Chris-tianity presented to the development of rabbinic Judaism. Until I heard that remark, I could not have imagined that any Jewish community in history would have felt an iota of "relief" when a whole sect of Jews left the community. After all, Jews traditionally mourn apostates. There is only grief. Moreover, I believe that Jews have fought sectarian battles from the earliest stages of Jewish history not to exclude Jews with variant practices and beliefs but to keep them within the fold whenever possible. Could I be wrong? Possibly. In any case, the comment has spurred me to reconsider how Jews have approached the dual issues of sectarianism and apostasy.

I am grateful to the ICJS for having provided these opportun-ities for learning, and I anticipate another opportunity to gather again soon to continue what we have only now begun.

Rabbi Daniel Aronson is the Dean of Admissions at the Recon-structionist Rabbinical College.