Rabbi Lauren Laird was a student rabbi when Washington Jewish Week spoke with her about Temple Beth Torah’s Chanukah celebration in December 2024. Laird now serves as the temple’s official rabbi.
“I didn’t think I would feel a whole lot different, but there is some kind of a spiritual shift and I feel good,” Laird said of her new role. “I feel even more confident that I am on the right path of what I’m meant to do.”
Her goals for Temple Beth Torah include bringing in more local families, growing the congregation’s religious school, introducing young professional programs and offering programming for retired members looking for community.
Though she was ordained not too long ago, on June 7, Laird is not new to the congregation nor the demands of the rabbinate. Rabbi Emeritus Kenneth Block, who served the Temple Beth Torah community for the past 27 years, made the decision to retire in 2023 before officially doing so in May 2025.
“[For the past two years, Laird has] led services, liturgy and, as the time moved on, she did more,” Block said. “That gave Rabbi Laird and me a couple of years for me to fade away into the sunset.”
He noted that this transition was an easy one due to Laird’s 30 years of experience as a Jewish spiritual leader, educator and pastoral care provider.
Laird has served the Temple Beth Torah community for nine years — first as a cantorial soloist, then a student rabbi and now rabbi — so she had no problem connecting with the synagogue community, according to Block.
“She knew everybody,” Block said. “It wasn’t as if someone came in from Des Moines to become the rabbi — she was already part of the community.”
Laird led Temple Beth Torah’s Chanukah service last December, when, donning a festive dress, she took care to explain every Jewish ritual.
Another part of Laird’s role as a student rabbi was to teach the congregation’s students, “and when we did a b’nai mitzvah, we did it together,” Block said.
At the same time, Laird pursued her rabbinic studies through the hybrid ALEPH Ordination Program, which trains students from all backgrounds and Jewish denominations. She had originally enrolled in ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal’s cantorial program.
“She wanted to be a rabbi and a cantor, and she very quickly dismissed the ‘and,’” Block said of Laird.
The then-student rabbi needed to complete a course on Hebrew prophets and, within the past year, a course in rabbinic commentary, but the timeline of when those courses were offered would have pushed Laird’s ordination back by a year or two, Block said.
So Block stepped up as her instructor, using the syllabi from ALEPH.
“We met the same number of sessions, the same number of hours,” Block said. “I was very pleased that Renewal certified me, authorized me and took what I taught her as credit towards the rabbinic program. That was the change from cantor to rabbi.”
The Temple Beth Torah community celebrated this Smicha at the synagogue with rabbis of all major Jewish denominations, in what Laird described as an atypical ceremony.
“It fit because my path was not your typical [trajectory from] college to grad school to seminary,” Laird said. “I came into this midlife and it was really one of those beshert moments.”
She added that when Temple Beth Torah needed a spiritual leader to help with music, she filled the cantorial role and discovered her “calling to be a rabbi.”
“It made sense to me to be surrounded by my community and my family in that moment of transition from student to rabbi and to be given Smicha first by Rabbi Block, my mentor and the person who saw this in me before I even knew that this was my path,” Laird said.
Block said that Laird’s professional work experience as a longtime federal employee lends itself to her ability to be a successful rabbi.
“Having worked for the federal government … she’s a mature individual who’s dealt with interpersonal relations, cooperation, projects, all the social qualities that many of my colleagues in the field lack,” Block said of the new rabbi.
Block has his own professional experience to draw upon, including his four decades as a chaplain at a psychiatric hospital and a career with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.
“To deal with a board, to deal with the politics, nothing trains you better than working for a big corporation, big company or with a federal, state or county government,” he said.
Block added that governmental work teaches how to effectively navigate and collaborate with others without dominating the decision making: “How do you work with people and not become ‘My way or the highway’?”
“Lauren, having worked for the federal government, knows how to do policy, how you separate the mission from what you may think personally and the ability to work with people to get something done,” Block said. “Plus she’s not coming in as a junior rabbi, and nothing beats clinical experience.”
He officially handed over the reins earlier in June, a decision that came easily.
“My already slowing down, and her doing more and more, and the fact that she was confident made it not even a no-brainer,” Block said. “There wasn’t even a thought or a question coming into this.”
