קול דודי

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

Tuition and Single Room at In-Person Retreats

$11,500

4 Equal Payments of $2,875

Rabbi Elisa Goldberg

For over two decades, Rabbi Elisa Goldberg has accompanied others on their spiritual journeys as a spiritual director, professional chaplain, congregational rabbi, and educator. For many years, Elisa served as a spiritual director at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and the Jewish Theological Seminary. She taught at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College on Rabbinic Ethics and Pastoral Counseling, and provided 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. Elisa 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

Cantor Ellen Dreskin

Ellen Dreskin is an ordained Cantor and Spiritual Director who uses sacred listening and a variety of resources and spiritual practices to help people connect non judgmentally to their own inner/spiritual journey. She has been in the field of faith for almost 40 years. She has extensive experience as a prayer leader, musical artist, storyteller, pastoral counselor, and educator in a number of Jewish settings.

Spiritual Directors International helps us understand spiritual companionship as “conversations about life in the light of faith.” It is an opportunity to connect more deeply and intentionally with one’s core/source/inner life, as well as what is infinite and eternal in both time and space. This exploration/spiritual practice takes place in the company of another who holds a non-judgemental, confidential space in which one’s spiritual story can be acknowledged and encouraged as a source of wisdom, nourishment, and support.

Ellen was introduced to mindfulness and other forms of contemplative spiritual practice through the Institute for Jewish Spirituality many years ago. In 2019, she completed a two-year course of study in order to become a Spiritual Companion, and now spends the majority of her professional time deeply engaged in this practice.

Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife

Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife (she/they) sprinkles sparkles, disrupts expectations, and offers blessings wherever she goes. She serves as Founding Kohenet of Kesher Pittsburgh and is a Core Faculty Member with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality; she also enjoys working with Jewish Studio Project and Kirva among other national Jewish organisations. Additionally, she delights in serving as a facilitator, teacher, life spiral ceremony/ritual creatrix,  shlichat tzibbur, liturgist and songstress. Her work in these realms is informed by her lived experience as a queer, bi-racial, child-free Jewish person living with chronic illness, her belief that Book, Body and Earth are equal sources of wisdom, the quandaries she has encountered as a scholar of the Orphan Wisdom School, and her deep commitment to a thriving, liberatory Jewish future. Keshira received Kohenet smicha in 2017 and earned her BS (2000) and MS (2001) at Carnegie Mellon University. Though both the lands of the Osage & Haudenosaunee people (aka Pittsburgh, PA) and the Gadigal people (Sydney, AUS) feel like home, Keshira and her beloved have been in an extended period of travel since January 2023.

Rabbi Myriam Klotz

Rabbi Myriam Klotz is former senior core faculty at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality (IJS) and retired after 23 years there in November 2024. She was the Founding Director of IJS Kol Dodi Jewish Spiritual Director Training and of Bekhol Levevkha JSD training at HUC-JIR; the former Director of the Spirituality Initiative at HUC-JIR; led inclusivity work at IJS including creating the LGBTQ+ Beit Midrash and the monthly LGBTQ+ sit (co-sponsored by Keshet!); co-created and co-directed Yoga and Jewish Spirituality Yoga Teacher Training at Isabella Freedman; and served on the Spiritual Directors International board of directors. She lives in Philadelphia with her wife Margot, son Raffi, and dog. Another son, Samm, lives in CA with his wife and cat.