The popular author of eight New Age spirituality/self-help books was not looking to be saved.
Nonetheless, Orsborn also knew she had failed to find what she was looking for her in her long-running “eclectic spiritual adventure,” which began in the 1960s.
“I wasn’t finding what I needed spiritually in the places I thought I would find them,” the 50-year-old Orsborn said last week by phone from her Nashville home. “With a lot of pop spirituality, I was able to feel God’s presence on a mountaintop, but I couldn’t bring it home with me.”
In her latest book, “Return from Exile: One Woman’s Journey Back to Judaism,” Orsborn describes how she overcame her own prejudices, fears and childlike perception of Judaism and Jews to find value, community and a deep connection to God.
Orsborn will discuss her book Friday, Nov. 13 at the Contra Costa Jewish Community Center’s 10th annual Jewish Book Festival in Walnut Creek.
“God,” she said, “isn’t necessarily a feeling. It’s a contractual agreement. It’s always binding in a good way, but not always in a comfortable way.”
During her 20 years living in Mill Valley and San Rafael, Orsborn and her husband headed a San Francisco public relations agency. She also worked as a corporate consultant and spent time writing books, such as “How would Confucius Ask for a Raise?” “The Art of Resilience” and “Inner Excellence.”
In the Bay Area, Orsborn found spiritual creativity, openness and plenty of experimentation.
What was lacking was the commitment, tradition and community she had felt during her childhood in Chicago’s affluent Jewish suburb of Glencoe, where her family attended a Reform synagogue.
“In the Bay Area, everybody was trying to invent their own — [with] the cafeteria-style approach of a little TM, a little Eastern philosophy and a little Scientology. There was the human tendency to pick the easy parts,” she said. “I would ask my next-door neighbor to baby-sit in an emergency and she would say she had to go to a retreat. Everybody was so busy improving themselves.”
The writer and lecturer could never have predicted that Nashville would be the place where she’d return to Judaism — and community.
The book opens with her rejection of Judaism in 1970, when she went to get her rabbi’s blessing on her choice of mate, Dan Orsborn, who isn’t Jewish.
She was close to the mentoring rabbi she called “Rabbi Bear” because he was “round and fuzzy.” Instead of showing approval, the rabbi shed a single tear. From that moment, Orsborn put Judaism aside until 1994 when she enrolled in Vanderbilt University’s Divinity School.
The book takes the reader through her first year of graduate school — a year that transformed her life.
The curriculum included the study of Judaism, requiring her to face her heritage for the first time in decades.
At first she re-examined Jews and Judaism on an intellectual level, and came face-to-face with her own misconceptions, biases and fears about being Jewish.
“There were incredible holes in my knowledge,” she said. “I would say things that weren’t true, like that there’s no forgiveness in Judaism.”
A Jewish professor at the seminary challenged Orsborn, saying that she had rejected Judaism before she knew Judaism. “It was incredibly painful to hear and I was mad at her, but she was right.”
The family joined Congregation Micah, a 400-family Reform synagogue in Nashville, initially seeking a sanctuary from Christian zealots.
Her teenage son, Grant, went on a seemingly innocent first date, for example. Halfway through the ice-cream social, Grant’s date and the rest of the room were on their knees praying for his salvation.
Said Orsborn, “We joined the temple for self-preservation.”
Orsborn didn’t know whether she would take to Congregation Micah. After first attending Yom Kippur services, she had a talk with the rabbi. “I told him I didn’t feel God’s presence,” she said. “I expected him to apologize. Instead, he confronted me on my childlike view of Judaism.”
Soon, she was feeling more a part of the close-knit congregation.
“The Jewish community here functions the way religion is supposed to function,” Orsborn said. “Religion is what we bring to it…Judaism has a rich tradition and history. You can find whatever you need to find within it.”
Judaism, she recognizes now, “is a living religion. I’m not going to outgrow Judaism because Judaism is changing. And finding a voice in Judaism means I’m going to be part of the change.”
Recently, she started leading silent meditation before services at the synagogue. Her family has also become more involved.
“I changed, my family changed, but Judaism also changed,” she said. “It embraces all of whom I am and gives me roots. That’s all I ever wanted.”