New 18-Month Training
Applications Are Now Closed

Click Here to Receive Notice When Applications Reopen

The Institute for Jewish Spirituality is thrilled to announce Kol Dodi: Jewish Spiritual Director Training, a new program that will prepare participants to serve as spiritual directors.

Kol Dodi translates from the Hebrew as “voice of my beloved.” Participants in this program will learn to accompany others on their spiritual journeys in one-on-one or group settings.

Kol Dodi is grounded in IJS’s contemplative and contemporary core spiritual practices for cultivating awareness of mind, body and heart, and for attuning to the Voice of the Beloved.

Spiritual direction is a unique practice that offers a distinct set of skills, ethics, and practices which are helpful for clergy and other spiritual care providers.

The program incorporates multidisciplinary approaches to contemplative soul companioning, drawing from both Jewish wisdom and the field of spiritual direction, with the aim of supporting the formation of self as a Jewish spiritual director. Towards this end, Kol Dodi’s formation program and curriculum centers the theory and practice of Jewish spiritual direction.

This unique training includes:

        • Teaching from core and guest faculty
        • Regular support and supervision from mentors
        • Chevruta (peer-based learning partners)
        • Small group experiential practice
        • Mindfulness and embodiment practices
        • Creative process and expressive arts
        • Trauma-informed orientation to spiritual director formation
        • Curriculum that integrates sacred activism into development as a spiritual director

Kol Dodi: Jewish Spiritual Director Training

Registration is Now Closed

Please submit your name and email address and we will inform you once new course dates are released.

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Taste of Spiritual Direction

Opening Fall 2025

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Faculty

Rabbi Elisa Goldberg

(she/her), Program Director

For over two decades, Rabbi Elisa Goldberg has accompanied others on their spiritual journeys as a spiritual director, professional chaplain, congregational rabbi, and educator. Rabbi Goldberg served until 2021 as a long time spiritual director at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and currently at the Jewish Theological Seminary. She teaches at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College on Rabbinic Ethics and Pastoral Counseling, and provides clinical supervision for students. She has served as Director of the Office of Rabbinic Placement for the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and led community chaplaincy services at the Jewish Family and Children’s Services of Philadelphia for fourteen years.

Rabbi Goldberg authored a guidebook on spirituality and recovery with Drexel University and consults on the integration of spiritually informed care. She was honored to be the first woman to lead the Philadelphia Board of Rabbis. She maintains a private spiritual direction and pastoral counseling practice and provides consultation and coaching for rabbinic colleagues.

Mentors

Rabbi Nicole Auerbach

Cantor Ellen Dreskin

Rabbi Rex Perlmeter

Ashley Plotnick, MEd, MAJS, MSW