First of all, no one has REAL smicha today. But for the rabinical smicha that is available today, women are not eligible. The reason is that the halacha forbids women to be rabbis. So saying it "disrespects tradition" is a gross understatement. It is something that is forbidden. You are trying to grant legitimacy to an illegal act.
There is no need to attack me because you disagree.
I really didn't intend an attack at all. Perhaps my disagreement is really with your rabbi and not with you in particular. I'm attacking the idea of the "woman rabbi."
I'm in no way granting legitimacy to the disgusting acts that the conservative and deformed practice.
I hear that. On the other hand, this is one of their innovations that has been copied by some supposedly Orthodox rabbis (or actually, one supposedly orthodox rabbi). Not saying that their innovations are always wrong by default, but the halacha in this case is against it.
I'm not degrading tradition either.
No, I did not think you were. When I said " saying it 'disrespects tradition' is a gross understatement" - I was referring to what you had said:
"Since a Rabbi is not defined in the torah, it would hypothetically not violate any torah laws for a woman to achieve genuine(not the fake type) smicha, however,
it would show great disrespect towards traditions which Jewish faith is based on."
So I'm just saying it's even more than a disregard for tradition, it's actually discarding the halacha too.
By no means can anyone, including men just call themselves a Rabbi without the proper training and practice. Proper training and practice for a women does not exist and probably never will, however, that is a decision that Hashem can make.
I guess this part is really what I don't get. How can Hashem decide that? Hasn't our law already been decided by Hashem and the sages who interpreted it?
A woman could have a role of leadership that goes far beyond what is expected from a woman.
This I don't disagree with at all. Women can definitely take on major roles in the community and even quasi-rabbinic role, but simply not a rabbi.
Whether that equates to her being a "Rabbi" is a different question, but Jewish history does have many cases of matriarchs. What I was saying is that this might apply to Jews holding office outside of Israel.
No one said women can't be leaders or have leadership positions. I fail to understand any parallel with the question of Jews holding office in galut though.
When you say halacha forbids women to be rabbis, are you referring to the "tradition" component or do you have a specific text to refer to?
There is a Jewish law, dealing with qualifications for a "dayan" (a rabbinical judge), and one of the laws is that a woman cannot be a dayan. This is in standard halacha. The title and position of "rabbi" today is a type of dayan. So most everyone in the orthodox world draws the simple conclusion from that - a woman can't be a rabbi.
It does not preclude other types of leadership.
But there was a controversy when R. Avi Weiss decided he was going to discard that halacha and elect his "rabbanit" or "maharit" (the 'official' name of his 'woman-rabbi' has changed several times now). The RCA wrote against his decision saying it was beyond the pale. From what I remember, he later admitted that the halacha is against him but he's doing it anyway.
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