There is an apocryphal portrait of hell and heaven that frames some of the educational challenges of the ICJS. The first scene features no fire and brimstone, no boulders to roll up the mountain, no demonic tyrants to serve or infernal prisons barring escape. Instead, a sumptuous table is lavishly set. There is room for everyone. The rumbling stomachs make it clear that a mighty appetite governs all desire. No sooner does one think of Aunt Nellie's apple streudel with Ben & Jerry's crowning the top than there it is -- alongside the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and, of course, the cream cheese blintzes once limited to the Lower East Side. You then hear the grumbling. A foul humor hangs over the banquet. The din-ner guests have discovered themselves to be the victims of a cosmic prank. No one is eating for the simple reason that no one can bend an elbow. The delicacies remain ever out of range, and you know from the growing rancor that all hell is about to break loose.

The next scene once again features a banquet fit for royalty, and the table accommodates the entire ensemble. The delica-cies are as vast and as varied as the imaginations of the guests. You hear the ebb and flow of rambunctious laughter. No sooner is one story recounted than another is layered on top. There is no end to the delight. On closer inspection, you observe that the dinner guests share a now familiar disability: No one can move an elbow. In response, one holds the spoon while the other eats. The give and take has the rhythm of dance. There is no rush, no scramble. The multitude seems convinced that it has an eternity to savor the vast wonders.

Over the past decade, the ICJS has learned to provide a vari-ety of dishes to a wide variety of audiences. The educational ventures cited in this update indicate that the offerings are growing in size and in substance. Whether professors and clergy, educators and seminarians, high school students and congregants come away from the table nourished depends upon their willingness to give and receive sustenance from people whose paths rarely converge. Over and over again we have seen participants discover new and surprising wonders that come from the other. To be sure, the people around the table have different tastes. More importantly, they have dif-ferent allegiances, different traditions, and different ways of standing in the world, but the educational encounter at the heart of the ICJS enables us to learn how to manage in a world where elbows do not bend. Your support and encour-agement sustain a feast that promises even bigger and better things in the future.