SOUL FOOD:

How many marriages to the same man does it take to change a woman from a ‘60s hippie and ‘70s feminist to a Chassid? It takes five — at least if you’re Jackie Stern.

Stern is an exuberant woman with a quick, toothy smile, sparkling brown eyes and a shock of dark, shoulder-length hair that belie her middle age. The former vice president of a large local chapter of the National Organization for Women, she has named her story about being a child of the ‘60s who became an observant Jew “From N.O.W. to Here.”

On Sunday afternoon, under the Terrace Arbor Tent of the Hyatt Regency Newport Beach and over the roar of jet after jet landing at John Wayne Airport, Stern recounted her spiritual transformation to more than 60 other Jewish women — mothers, daughters, grandmothers and sisters — at a program called “Spa for the Soul.”

The five-hour retreat for women, organized by Chabad of West Orange County and Chabad of South Huntington Beach, combined workshops and lectures, music and prayer, on-site massages, makeup tips and manicures.

It was the third of what has become an annual event intended to provide both physical relaxation and spiritual enlightenment.

The event was held in Newport Beach because of the Hyatt Regency’s ability to provide a Glatt Kosher lunch. Maria Jaeger, who also attended the previous two retreats, said the programs are extensions of “havurahs,” smaller groups of Jewish women who meet on a regular basis to share their wisdom and support.

Through the small groups and the larger retreats, Jaeger said, “You learn you’re not alone in this journey. When you’re getting frustrated and upset and you’re thinking, ‘Wow, is this really worth it?’ you go to one of these meetings and lectures, and you hear how important it is.”

She realizes, she said, she is “doing a good thing.”

Keeping a kosher household isn’t always easy. So one morning workshop offered insights into the spiritual and physical benefits of a kosher diet, as well as tips on finding kosher convenience foods now available at places like Ralphs, Mother’s Kitchen and Trader Joe’s.

Other workshops explained how to set a Shabbat table fit for a queen, how to juggle a job and a household, and how to raise good children.

Naomi Slotkin, a 17-year-old operatic talent who has been performing since she was 9, provided the day’s musical entertainment, woven around prayers for peace. The young vocalist sang “The Little Bird,” a song of Israel’s redemption, “My Mother’s Shabbos Candles” and finally, “Ani Ma’amin -- I Believe,” a song composed during the Holocaust.

“It is a very moving melody expressing our faith in G-d’s ultimate redemption of the Jewish people,” explained Co-Program Coordinator Rochel Berkowitz, wife of Rabbi Aron David Berkowitz of Chabad West Orange County and Congregation Adat Israel in Huntington Beach.

“Ani Ma’amin,” begins the song. “I believe with complete faith in the coming of Mashiach. And even though he may tarry, still, I believe.”

Those who attended received a Friday Lights Kit, packaged in a small green voile bag tied with satin cords. Each bag contained two tea-light-sized Shabbos candles, a small box of matches and information about the lighting of Shabbat candles. The Chabad Headquarters in California provided the kits.

“With all that is going on in Israel, now more than ever it is very important for Jewish women to unite in this way [by lighting Shabbos candles on Friday night],” said Berkowitz. “[It] brings peace into the homes and into the world.”

For anyone who might like one, the kits are still available from Congregation Adat Israel, she said.

After lunch, Stern was the keynote speaker. She had no trouble keeping her audience from nodding off in a post-luncheon nap.

With a soulful rhythm played with tenderness and humor, she retraced her journey that spanned two continents, several decades, seven house Kosherings and many detours along the way.

Swells of laughter and spontaneous applause revealed how familiar Stern’s passage was.

She was born in Chicago, then moved to Los Angeles seven years later to grow up in a “typical nonreligious” Jewish home. Like her, some of the women in Sunday’s audience were similarly raised in secular Jewish households; others had friends or a marriage partner who had been. For some, Chassidic Judaism was still new to them.

Each can remember a time before they knew how to properly light a Shabbat candle, before they — like Stern — knew a Ghet, a Jewish divorce, from “get.” They, too, may have family who survived the Holocaust yet never talk about it. As for Stern, their Jewish identity in so many ways was long a mystery to them.

In the ‘60s, Stern had been drawn to social and political causes. She was also lured by ‘70s-era feminism.

In spite of years of participating in and leading consciousness-raising groups, she remained vaguely unhappy.

A tipping point came during a trip to Munich and Budapest — part business, part family reunion — with her musician husband Andy. In Hungary, she met a brother-in-law, a medical student at the time. She visited the Dachau Concentration Camp. Meeting them in their hotel room, Andy’s brother turned on the water, the radio and the television before he whispered to them, “Don’t tell anyone I’m Jewish or [after medical school] I won’t get a position.” Remember, Stern, told her listeners, “this was 1976.”

After asking how many had themselves visited a concentration camp and seeing a wide show of raised hands, Stern said, “Then you know. You hear voices, smell smells.”

In the hush that followed, I could feel the hairs on my arms stand on end. I’m not Jewish, but nonetheless I know what she said is true.

It’s impossible to visit a concentration camp — even to visit the secret annex where Anne Frank and her family hid — without walking away believing somehow in ghosts. History settles on you like the mist of a heavy fog.

Stern returned home with an unremitting itch to fully understand her Jewish identity. Her desire took her to a bookshop in search of a book “about being Jewish.”

There, the bookseller recommended “How To Be A Perfect Jewish Homemaker,” a book written by his father. It was the perfect book, as it turned out, for the N.O.W. chapter vice president who was also a wife, a mother and a Jewish woman.

The irony of that did not escape Stern, who with the book began her spiritual road trip through Reform Judaism, Reconstructionist Judaism (“There is no God. God is in you, God is in me,” Stern explained it) and finally to Chassidic Judaism, where she found her fulfillment as a Jewish woman.

There, she said, she found the sisterhood she’d been looking for all along.