<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; border-collapse: collapse; "><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; border-collapse: collapse; ">Someone brought to my attention the Levush, who rules that women do not shecht out of fear of fainting.</span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; border-collapse: collapse; "><br></span></div>It makes more sense to me that the Rema's ruling is echoing the Levush. Many<br>
decisions in halacha, even those canonized in the Codes, are often much more<br>banal than is assumed by later-day analysis.<br><br>I may be biased, but I think that in spite of their genius, the chiddushim<br>of the Briskers in particular fit into this category of &quot;erudite<br>
glorification&quot; of halacha.<br><br>This doesn't mean of course, that serara isn't a problem to contend with,<br>especially in the area of the rabbinate, but it does caution us to define<br>our terms carefully and to determine the integrity of our reasoning and of<br>
our sources even more carefully.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; border-collapse: collapse; "><br></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; border-collapse: collapse; ">Also, regarding Shemaya and Avtalyon, the article mentions Herod explicitly, but R Chaim's answer notwithstanding, I agree with Zev that there appear to be several worthy examples (apart from Herod, who in my mind is not). There are such examples for women too, like Devorah or Shlomtzion.</span></div>