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ABSTRACT
Religion and spirituality have often been defined over against each other. The spontaneous, emotional and experiential nature of the spirit has been seen as preferential to the structured, fixed, and predictable nature of religious ritual. Religion education for children has moved away from the performance of ritual behaviour toward creating an environment to nurture the innate spiritual nature of children. This paper questions whether the pendulum has swung too far, neglecting rituals that have sustained religious and communal life for generations, and considers ways of reimagining traditional ritual as a way to encounter the spirit and build community.
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Sandy Sasso Eisenberg
Sandy Sasso Eisenberg served as Senior Rabbi of Congregation Beth-El Zedeck, Indianapolis, Indiana from 1977–2013. She is currently the director of the Religion, Spirituality and the Arts Initiative at IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute. Dr. Sasso received her B.A. and M. A. from Temple University. She was the first women ordained from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1974 and received her Doctor of Ministry from CTS in 1996. Sasso is the author of two books for adults and many nationally acclaimed children’s books. She is a contributor to many publications on children’s spirituality and is a co-editor of Nurturing Children and Adolescent Spirituality: Perspectives from the World’s Religions, 2006. She was coeditor with Michael Shire of the CCAR Journal on Spiritual Teaching and Transformation, 2014. Active in the civic life of her community, she is the recipient of the highest civilian award in the State of Indiana (Sagamore of the Wabash) and in 2014, she was honored with the Heritage Keeper’s Award from the Indiana State Museum.