Today marks the first day of classes at Oregon State University, and it also is Yom Kippur, among the holiest of Jewish holidays.

That presents a tough choice for devout Jewish students and staff members at OSU: They typically don't go to work or school on Yom Kippur, and the day is reserved for prayer and reflection. The comparison isn't exact, but this is a little like scheduling the first day of class on Christmas.

It's a scheduling embarrassment for OSU and most of the other schools in the Oregon University System, but university officials did something refreshing last week: They admitted they messed up, and pointed to a new policy under which school terms in the future won't start on a religious holiday.

We hear a lot of talk these days about "teachable moments," but here's a situation that really fits the definition, and OSU officials and mid-valley religious leaders took advantage of the moment: As controversies go, this one was mild: No finger-pointing. No pounding on podiums. No exchanges of clashing press releases.

Give credit to Terryl Ross, OSU's director of its Office of Community and Diversity, and Rabbi Benjamin Barnett of Beit Am, the mid-valley's main Jewish organization, for seizing the high ground.

"We obviously missed the boat on this," Ross said - and then went on to make some interesting observations about how our increasingly multicultural society will have to figure out ways to make room for a raft of religious holidays. His upshot: Reasonable people can figure out ways to deal with this.

Barnett said he appreciated the university system's willingness to change its policies in the future - and also spent time working with students and others who were wondering how to deal with the scheduling snafu.

And he also had some memorable comments about the beauty of Yom Kippur itself: It's a day to focus on moving forward, he said: "It's an incredible opportunity to begin again, to sort of recapture hope and whatever we are aspiring to in our lives. It's a day of really clarifying and redevoting ourselves."

In some ways, oddly enough, it sounds like the sort of process you might naturally go through on the first day of class. But they won't have to share the same space on the calendar any more, thanks in part to the words and actions of reasonable people who turned an embarrassing situation into something positive.