Please join us on Saturday, November 1 at 10 a.m. at Havurah House for Shabbat morning services. This week we will be celebrating the Bat Mitzvah of Shoshana Tieyah

Everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend, including new members and those who have not previously attended our regular services.  Rabbi’s class students are especially encouraged to attend.

Please pass this message on to anyone who may be interested.  We hope to see you there!

If you have any questions, please contact Mitch Pearl at  mpearl@langrock.com or Ira Schiffer at ischiffe@middlebury.edu.

The Reverend Susan McGarry will deliver the annual Rabbi Victor E. Reichert Bible Talk at the Ripton Community Church at 4 pm on Sunday, October 26.  For the past two years Reverend McGarry has served as the rector of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church on the Green in Middlebury and has a PhD in Ancient and Biblical Studies from the University of Michigan.  In keeping with the Rabbi’s tradition, Reverend McGarry has entitled her presentation “A Talk About the First Mass Market Text in the Bible,” challenging her listeners to discern what “text” that might actually be. 

“We will be examining divine revelations and their progress toward useful community literature.  ‘What was said, when was it said, and how it was recorded,’ are all-important questions for Bible study.  When and how the biblical material becomes useful to the community will be the subject of this talk as well as the more speculative question, ‘why.’”

The annual Reichert Bible Talk is a tradition that reaches back to the years just after World War Two, when poet Robert Frost invited Rabbi Reichert to visit him at the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference in Ripton. Frost had met Reichert while giving a reading in Cincinnati, where Reichert was rabbi of the Rockdale Temple, the oldest synagogue west of the Alleghenies, from 1924 to 1964. Their friendship deepened, and Rabbi Reichert and his wife Louise eventually bought an old one-room schoolhouse near Bread Loaf as a summer cottage.  For many summers, the Reicherts attended the nearby Ripton Methodist Church, and Rabbi Reichert would give a talk in the late summer on one of the books of the Jewish Bible, of those scriptures common to Jews and Christians. The “Bible Talk” became an annual event, and the Ripton congregation named Reichert the church’s “Rabbi in Residence.” Since Rabbi Reichert’s passing in 1990 at the age of ninety-three, Havurah—The Jewish Community of Addison County, and the United Methodist Church of Middlebury, East Middlebury and Ripton have collaborated to sustain this ecumenical tradition, co-sponsoring the Bible Talk every year.

The Ripton Community Church is located on Route 125 in the village center.  Call Norm Tjossem at 802-388-0338 for further information.

Our first Havurah Hangout, Sunday, October 19 at 5:00 PM, honors the 50^th anniversaries of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights March of 1965.  Emily Joselson will engage us in a conversation on the role of law and activism in the pursuit of civil rights, both past and present.  While the country still reels from the recent death of Michael Brown, in Ferguson, MO, we can fairly ask ourselves how much has really changed.  But we can also celebrate such positive legacies of the civil rights movement in the gains made in such areas as gender pay equity and gay rights.  Emily’s law practice spans cases involving employment discrimination, environmental harms, and personal injury/wrongful death, among others.

Please join us this Saturday, October 18, at 10 a.m. at Havurah House for Shabbat morning services .

In the first regular Shabbat after the High Holidays and Simchat Torah, we read parsha Bereshit, the very beginning of the Hebrew bible, the creation.

Everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend, including new members and those who have not previously attended our regular services.  Rabbi’s class students are especially encouraged to attend.

If you have any questions, please contact Mitch Pearl at mpearl@langrock.com, or Ira Schiffer at ischiffe@middlebury.edu.

Looking ahead: Our next regular Shabbat morning service will be on November 1, celebrating Shoshana Tieyah’s Bat Mitzvah.

Middlebury volunteers serve lunch Monday thru Thursday to 30-40 hungry people.

Havurah continues to serve every third Wednesday. We have a very small, but very mighty corps of volunteers.

If you have time to bake cookies, cakes, or make chicken or tuna salad for sandwiches, or contribute a casserole or salad of any kind, all contributions are most welcome. You do not have to spend time in the kitchen! Food can be dropped off in the Charter House kitchen identified for Havurah. (Let Lois know what you’re bringing…)

Contact Lois Kraus loiskraus10@gmail.com

Friday, Oct 31, 2014 at 7:00 PM – Sunday, Nov 2, 2014 at 5:00 PM

 

Register and learn more here.
The theme is “Making Connections” and we expect attendees who are immersed in their Jewish organizations as well as those who don’t yet know how they want to connect.

Against a backdrop of Jewish culture (music, food, art) attendees will take part in presentations, workshops, peer cohort meetings, children’s programming as well as schmooze time and a resource fair.

Keynote Speaker: Barry Schrage of Combined Jewish Philanthropies in Boston, Barry will be speaking about the importance of Jewish Community and how to strengthen it.

22 Workshops and opportunities to meet and schmooze. The event ticket includes continental breakfast and a kosher lunch.

Cohort Meetings will include rabbis, educators, board members from synagogues and organizations, the Board of Delegates for Jewish Communities of Vermont (made up of 2 delegates from each organization),Young Professionals, etc.

In addition there will be programming for children, tweens and teens.

 

Choose an event or come to them all!

Sunday, 10/5, 2pm, Sukkah Construction. Please come and bring a cordless drill/screwdriver with Phillips head if you have one. All pieces/parts and screws await you in the Havurah basement.

 

Monday, 10/6 during Hebrew School, Sukkah decoration.

 

Friday, 10/10, 6:15pm, Kabbat Shabbat and Sukkot celebration.

 

In response to requests for us to have opportunities to get together and talk about questions that matter, Havurah is happy to introduce Havurah House Hangouts. During the coming year there will be a number of programs that will draw from both the “town and gown” sectors of our community.

Each program will have a facilitator speak briefly about the topic of the day, related to his or her professional/personal interest, and then open a conversation where we can get to better know and learn from each other.

Sunday, October 19 at 5:00 PM
Honoring the 50th anniversaries of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights March of 1965, Emily Joselson will engage us in a conversation on the role of law and activism in the pursuit of civil rights, both past and present. While the country still reels from the recent death of Michael Brown, in Ferguson, MO, we can fairly ask ourselves how much has really changed. But we can also celebrate such positive legacies of the civil rights movement in the gains made in such areas as gender pay equity and gay rights. Emily’s law practice spans cases involving employment discrimination, environmental harms, and personal injury/wrongful death, among others.

Sunday, November 16 at 5:00 PM
Join us in a safe space to talk about Zionism, Israel, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This is an opportunity for members of Havurah to share reflections and questions about Israel’s history, its present situation and its future. Robert Schine will introduce some of the complexities involved in any discussion of Israel and Zionism, and will moderate the discussion. Robert, who, as many members of Havurah know, is Professor of Jewish Studies at Middlebury College, frequently teaches a course on the history of Zionism.

Wednesday, December 17 at 7:00 PM
In addition to getting together to light our hanukiot and sharing latkes and sufganiot (jelly donuts!), Mitch Pearl will lead a discussion on adult spiritual journeys. Mitch, Havurah’s Ritual Chair, has been an adult Jewish learner for many years and a participant in Jewish spiritual retreats at Elat Chayyim, the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in Falls Village.

Thursday, October 9; 4:30pm, Robert A. Jones ’59 House conference room
Lecture “The Hilltop Settlement:  A Perspective of an Israeli Author” by
Assaf Gavron, visiting professor,  University of Nebraska, Omaha

Friday, October 17; 12:15pm, Robert A. Jones ’59 House conference room
International and Global Studies Colloquium “Reflections on Israel: A
Roundtable Discussion” among Middlebury College faculty who visited Israel
in June, about their expectations and the experiences of the trip .  Lunch
provided for those who RSVP by 10/13 to rcga@middlebury.edu. $5 donation
suggested; free to College ID cardholders.

Friday, October 31; 12:15pm, Robert A. Jones ’59 House conference room
International and Global Studies Colloquium “Why is There No Palestinian
Flag in the Stadium? Soccer and Identity among Arab Citizens of Israel” by
Tamir Sorek, associate professor of Jewish Studies and sociology, University
of Florida.  Lunch provided for those who RSVP by 10/27 to
rcga@middlebury.edu. $5 donation suggested; free to College ID cardholders.

Tuesday, November 4, 4:30pm, Robert A. Jones ’59 House conference room
Lecture “How Western is Israel?” by Sammy Smooha, Haifa University.