Acclaimed Author
In the 1980s, while surveying children’s religious literature to find good books for her own children and for the students she taught, she was disappointed. No one was taking children’s innate spirituality seriously. In fact, most of what was written was limiting their imagination. So, she began writing about God and spirituality in ways that would both engage children and allow the ideas presented to grow with them. She was more interested in the questions and the conversation, than the answers. In 1992, her first children’s book, God’s Paintbrush, was published. It was an immediate success, selling over 100,000 copies. Many consider it a classic.
Subsequent children’s books have also received national acclaim. Publisher’s Weekly selected two of her books, But God Remembered and Noah’s Wife; The Story of Na’amah, as Best Books of the Year. Abuelita’s Secret Matzahs is the winner of the 2005 Sugarman Family Children’s Book Award and the 2006 Best Books of Indiana Award. Rabbi Sasso is the 2004 recipient of the Helen Keating Ott Award for Outstanding Contribution to Children’s Literature. And her latest children’s book—The Shemah in the Mezuzah—won the 2012 National Jewish Book Award for Best Illustrated Children’s Book.
Rabbi Sasso has also been a successful writer for adults. “It is my belief that difficult and complex ideas must be accessible to all, if we are to have an intelligent conversation about faith, meaning and purpose. What is required is not a simplification of ideas, but a simplification of language.” Sasso’s writings for adults appear in numerous collections and in her book Midrash – Reading the Bible with Question Marks. She reminds us; “I believe that opposites are best when matched, lover and power, justice and compassion, faith and doubt, seriousness and play. The Sacred is the “and” that brings those opposites into one harmonious whole.”
International Speaker
The spiritual life begins in encounters, but those experiences are often difficult to translate into words. The closest we can get to the actual transforming event is in story. From high school through college, Sasso became interested in Hasidic tales. They expressed in few words powerful insights into the human condition. They spoke not only to the intellect but to the heart. They challenged conventional ways of thinking and helped to reimagine the world. Gertrude Stein wrote; “a writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears.” A speaker should speak from the stories that reside in the heart.
From the time she began rabbinical school in 1969, Sandy Sasso was sought out as a speaker. Over the years she has been called to address small retreats and workshops as well as keynote large conventions.
She has spoken internationally, presented at schools, and headlined national conventions. She was the Commencement Speaker at Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Sasso was also the Keynote Speaker at the First International Conference on the Spiritual Life of Children in West Sussex, England, and has addressed the Association for Presbyterian Church Educators, Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis, National Unitarian/Universalist Conference, and United Methodist Quadrennial Conference.
She has brought her stories and insights into the spiritual life of children to synagogues and churches around the country—presenting at The American Academy for Religion, Faith, and Writing Conference at Calvin College; Chautauqua Institution’s Spirituality and Healing Conference; and at the Church and Synagogue Library Association.
Trailblazing Rabbi
In 1969 when Sandy Eisenberg received her B.A. from Temple University in Philadelphia, there were no women rabbis in America. Secular feminism was just emerging and religious feminism was nonexistent. The Fall of 1969 Ms. Eisenberg entered seminary hoping to become a rabbi. Five years later, in 1974, Sandy Eisenberg Sasso became the first woman ordained from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.
After three years at a Manhattan congregation, she moved to Indianapolis in 1977 with her husband Rabbi Dennis C. Sasso. They became spiritual leaders of Congregation Beth-El Zedeck and are the first practicing rabbinical couple in world Jewish history. In July 2013, after 36 years at the congregation, she became Rabbi Emerita and became the founding Director of the Religion, Spirituality and the Arts Initiative at Herron School of Art and Design at Indiana University at Indianapolis.
Rabbi Sasso earned her B.A. and M.A. from Temple University and her Doctorate of Ministry from Christian Theological Seminary. She is the recipient of several honorary doctorates: Reconstructionist Rabbinical College; DePauw University; Butler University; Franklin College; and Christian Theological Seminary and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
Rabbi Sasso has been active in the arts, civic, and interfaith communities of Indianapolis and beyond. She has served on numerous boards addressing issues of women’s equality, education, hunger, philanthropy, the humanities, and the arts. She has been President of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, Gleaners Food Bank, and Chair of the annual Indianapolis Spirit and Place Festival. She also wrote a monthly column for the Indianapolis Star.
As a woman pioneer in the rabbinate, she has written and lectured on women and spirituality. Her rabbinic and interfaith work has helped to shape her interests in the discovery of the religious imagination in children and the connection between spirituality and the arts. She is the author of several nationally acclaimed children’s books, her latest—The Shemah in the Mezuzah—winning the 2012 National Jewish Book Award for Best Illustrated Children’s Book.