Discussion Topics

Rabbi Sandy Sasso speaks and discusses a wide range of subject matter. The list below shares many of these discussion topics for review and consideration.

A CHILD’S GEOGRAPHY OF THE SACRED

All children have a spiritual life, a natural religious curiosity and an innate sense of awe of the universe. They call God out of their place, and the place where they stand is holy. Despite our children’s desire to talk about God and an innate ability to deal with theological ideas, religious education is often ineffective in nurturing the spiritual life of children.

Come journey to the places of our children’s spirit and learn how to nurture the imagination of their souls.

NURTURING THE SPIRITUAL JOURNEY OF OUR CHILDREN

Our society does a very good job of educating our children to be consumers and competitors. How do we nurture their innate spiritual life, teach them to be gracious and grateful, to have courage in difficult times, to have a sense of purpose? There are many programs that help our children exercise their bodies and their minds. This workshop will explore ways to give children a language to talk about the big questions of life, to exercise their souls. In process we will discover that our own souls are nurtured as well.

NURTURING THE SPIRITUAL IMAGINATION OF CHILDREN

Come journey to the places of our children’s spirit and learn how, as parents and grandparents, to nurture the imagination of their souls.

TELL ME A STORY: READING THE BIBLE AND THE RELIGIOUS IMAGINATION OF CHILDREN

Teaching spirituality through children’s narrative is a powerful vehicle for nurturing the spirit. Learn how good children’s literature can be a window to teaching spiritual values and ideas and how you as a parent, grandparent or teacher can help develop your children’s religious imagination.

MIDRASH AS A TOOL FOR SPIRITUAL REFLECTION

Customarily, when we read the Bible we listen to its ancient words, allowing it to tell us our ancestors’ stories. But the rabbis believed that the Bible spoke to every generation anew and allowed it stories to enter their lives and they let their lives enter the story. They created midrash, an imaginative body of literature, which enriched the Biblical narrative and kept it fresh and vital. Listen to how the words of Scripture spoke to others before us and then consider what would it mean to read the Bible by allowing it to help us tell the stories of our lives? What if we read our joys, our fears and our doubts into the biblical narrative?

FILLING IN THE BLANKS: HOW WOMEN READ THE BIBLE

In the Bible we find stories of women who have no names and names of women who have no stories. We see these women through the eyes of the male characters in their life. What would it mean to pour a woman’s soul into Scripture and to allow our ancestral mothers to tell their own stories? Listen and learn from these Biblical voices that have long been silent.

WOMEN AND JUDAISM: A PERSONAL JOURNEY

Jewish feminism began in the early 1970’s. Change has rapidly reshaped Jewish life in the home, synagogue and community. Women’s perspective has altered the Jewish landscape in prayer, ritual, communal leadership and research. What are the issues today and where we are heading in the next century?

WRITING FOR THE SPIRITUAL LIVES OF OUR CHILDREN

Children come to us with an innate spirituality. What they don’t have is the language to express it. Spiritual writing for children can give them that language, the tools to reflect and explore their spiritual experience. Journey to the places of our children’s spirit and learn how stories can nurture their religious imagination.