[Avodah] Maharat

[Sholom Simon via Avodah]

>Hora'ah is not writing books, it's paskening a 
>specific shayla for a specific person.

I guess the question is: is that related to semicha? Note the following
(by Joel B. Wolowelsky, from that Tradition issue last year that focused
on women's leadership issues)

The standards of the semikha might vary from yeshiva to yeshiva even
though the text of the klaf certificate is generally the same. I think
it safe to say that no one takes semikha at face value as authority to
pasken difficult halakhic questions on matters of grave import. Very
few rabbis are viewed as posekim, and their authority surely does not
rest on any formal semikha they were awarded at an early stage in their
professional career. Most rabbis even most pulpit rabbis are relied
upon to relate what the accepted halakha is, not what it should be.
They are not assumed to be posekim. Rabbi Menachem Penner, Dean of RIETS,
recently made this clear when he stated that:

    not all individuals given the title of rabbi are entitled to serve
    as decisors of Jewish law... Following the halakhic opinion of a
    scholar or rabbi who is not recognized as a posek would represent a
    fundamental breach in the mesorah of the establishment of normative
    halakha... Musmakhim of RIETS, along with all learned individuals,
    are entitled to their personal opinions on halakhc matters and the
    halakhic system as it functions today and may publicize their views
    as opinions that are not halakhically binding.

If this is true of musmakhim of RIETS, who have completed many serious and
demanding years of study, all the more so for the myriads of rabbis who
earned their semikha by simply sitting for a less-demanding final exam
after self-study or learning in a beit midrash up until their wedding,
at which time they received semikha. We should quickly note that this is
not intended to imply a diminution of the value of semikha. Rather it
reflects an unprecedented expansion of Torah study in our community.
Which raises the obvious question: if so many men have semicha that
shouldn't engage in hora'ah, what's the problem of having a woman in a
similar position?

[Email #2.]

Earlier in this thread, someone mentioned that in Israel, this doesn't
seem to be so much of an issue.

May I recommend an utterly fascinating article on this: 
A VIEW FROM THE OTHER SIDE By Rachel Levmore, Ph.D.
<http://traditiononline.org/pdfs/49.1/0049-0058.pdf>

- Sholom