[Avodah] Maharat

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Sun, May 28, 2017 at 10:11:37PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
: It is my opinion that the typical yoetzet and maharat are at least
: equally qualified (and likely more so) than the typical gemara rebbe,
: because they have been trained in answering such questions, but he has
: not. And yet, it is an everyday occurrence for students (myself
: included, until I learned better) to ask all sorts of shailos to these
: teachers, because, after all, *Rabbi* Ploni is obviously a rabbi!

I do not think the typical yo'etzet is qualified under mikol asher
yrukha regardless of how capable she is. The term only applies to be
elegable to recieve full semichah -- if the chain hadn't been lost,
or could be restored.

THat's the thesis of what I'm pushing here; that even the most able
woman would never be covered by lo sasur, and therefore can't be a
"rav" in the sense of pesaq.

Then I have separate problems with changing the "Men's Club" feel of
shul, believing that it was (1) intentional and that (2) still of use
to today's man. IOW, I have problems with women as synagogue rabbi
in a role that changes who is running or speaking during services.

And, since this seems ot be turning into a full reprise, even though
we should all know the other's position by now, my third problem is
with egalitarianism in-and-of itself.

It runs counter to much of halakhah to say that we should try for
egalitarianism in religious roles. First, such an attempt would be
frustrated, as we can't reach full egalitarianism within halakhah.
By justifying finding worth in this way, we are indeed teaching girls
their traditional role is inferior and they can't reach equality. Rather
than trying to find equal meaningfullness without egalitarianism. Second,
the fact that we can't reach full eqalirianism implies something about the
anature of gener roles, and whether egalitarianism as a value is entirely
consistent with our religion. It should mean that we should really think
through our even wanting to make halakhah more egalitarian, and how to
balance that with the clear message of laws like davar shebiqdushah,
talmud Torah, esrog, sukkah, shofar...

Again:
1- Who can pasqen
2- Who was shul designed to serve
3- Trying to accomodate agalitarianism is both strategically and in terms
   of values, a bad idea.

Notice the absense of the word "serarah". Trying to minimize or eliminate
the role of serarah in our conversation won't do much to sway me, as it
has little to do with my arguments to begin with.

Now, back to R/Dr Stadlan's email:

:> I disagree with both of these. YD 242 is about kavod harav.
:> IOW, it says that such permission is necessary, but not that
:> anyone with permission is necessarily a rabbi.

: I agree that YD 242 is about kavod harav. And if the rav is niftar,
: then that permission is no longer necessary, but that's not what the
: discussion is about. The discussion is about who is covered by mikol
: asher yorukha. So why wouldn't the semicha place a musmach into that
: category?

It could or couldn't -- I believe couldn't. (Following R/Prof Lieberman
and RHS.) But SA 242 can't be cited on the topic either way, since the
se'if is not on topic for our discussion. R/Dr N Stadlan brought it as
the defintion of the role of semichah, so I wanted to dismiss taking
this siman that way.`

"Mikol asher yorukha" is written in the context of dayanim. The only
reason why we say it applies to today's musmachim, despite the lesser
kind of semichah and the lack of sanhedrin is that "yoreh yoreh" is
framed as a splinter of dayanus (which is where the phrase "yoreh yoreh"
comes from) and that they are appointed to act as the surrogate of the
last (so far) sanhedrin.

None of which pro forma can be applied to women. Only someone who could
be a dayan, if the situation were such that they could become qualified
and real semichah were available can serve as their fill-in.


On Sun, May 28, 2017 at 10:06:06PM -0500, Noam Stadlan via Avodah wrote:
: so we agree that we are discussing hora'ah.

: And, we agree that references in YD 242 are only to kavod ha'rav, and don't
: necessarily apply to anything else.  But the OU authors claim that some of
: YD 242 is based on classic semicha...

They note that the Rama in 4-5 is drawing from the Mahariq, and
then explain that the Mahariq tells you he is basing his conclusion on
the idea that what's true for classic semichah should be true for our
current Yoreh-Yoreh (YY). They also cite the AhS 242:30, who assumes
that only those eligable for classic semichah can be ordained YY.

Those are the ony two mentions of siman 242 in the paper, neither of which
refer to the se'ifim you did. And what you are attributing to the OU is
actually the Mahariq and the Ah -- a source and an interpreter (who is
for us a source in his own right) of the SA -- not their own take.

: You think that there is the possibility of more, but cannot say exactly
: where it fits in, and I suggest that the wording of YD 242:14 is very much
: against that possibility.  It states:
...
: The only possible conclusion is the semicha is permission. period. and the
: ending: "now it is only the extension of permission in general"

YD 242:14 isn't trying to define semichah. It's in a siman about kevod
harav, not a siman about semichah. You are nit-picking in the wording
about se'ifim that are only tangentially related, and ignoring the Rama's
stated source.

I disagree with how you read the se'if, since his "only" would be about
kevod harav, not "semichah is only". But really that's tangential. Your
read of the Rama contradicts one of the sources he names.

...
: Thank you for agreeing that the statement that "all who are cannot be
: witnesses cannot judge" is not universally applicable...

I do? Where do I say that?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 48th day, which is
micha at aishdas.org        6 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Yesod sheb'Malchus: What binds different
Fax: (270) 514-1507             people together into one cohesive whole?