Great talk at the community church this Sunday

An exciting event is happening in our town this Sunday, September 18th.  Middlebury College's new president will deliver the annual Reichert Bible Talk in the community church.

At 4 pm Laurie L. Patton, who has served as a professor of religion earlier in her career, will speak to “Reading, Resting, Contemplation:  A Biblical View.”

From the press release:

In keeping with Rabbi Reichert’s traditional practice, President Patton will challenge her listeners to discern what scripture or text from the Hebrew Bible she will present in her talk.  

All are welcome.  For more information call Norm Tjossem at 802-388-0338.
 
About the Bible Talk and its roots in Ripton:

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 Hebrew 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 Churches of Middlebury, East Middlebury and Ripton have collaborated to sustain this interfaith tradition, co-sponsoring the Bible Talk every year.

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