“A woman cannot be a witness and cannot be dayan”
Actually a woman can be a dayan in a property case, although at the moment there are no women with the appropriate level of semichah. Rav Uziel z’tz’l points this out in his response to Rav Kook z’tz’l over the issue of women voting and running for office; essentially the entirety of the Jewish world accepted Rav Uziel’s opinion.
“I want to be a doctor, so let’s say, hypothetically, that I know everything I need to know to set up shop, but since I didn’t go to med school, I can’t get my MD”
There was a time, not that long ago, when women could not become doctors. Elizabeth Blackwell, followed by her sister Emily Blackwell, were the first two female physicians in the United States — graduating from medical school in the United States in 1849. (Interestingly the first female Protestant minister in the US, Antoinette Brown, would marry their brother Sam Blackwell.) However, what is not well known is that in ancient times, in the middle ages, and in early modern times there were a very, very small number of female physicians in Europe. Similarly, there were a very small number of learned women in Judaism who fulfilled rabbi-like roles without the title.
“Perhaps to some, the title of rebbetzin signifies the kind of female rabbi indicated in benignuman’s post; for many, however, that does not seem to be the case.”
Rebbitzen mean’s rabbi’s wife; there isn’t any reason why one must be married to someone with semichah in order to get semichah yourself.
” it denotes being kosher as a dayan”
The usual yoreh yoreh semichah that 99% of rabbis have specifically does NOT qualify them to be a dayan. And see above.
‘I personally do not understand how a rabbi whose contract must be re-approved periodically and whose son does not inherit his postion (see Rav Shaul Yisrael, “Amud HaYemini” 12:5) is said to hold a ????.’
Neither do I. The way that congregations treat rabbis clearly shows that it is the people with the money who have the ????.
“It does seem somewhat disturbing that we would be held hostage like that by the actions of outsiders.”
Indeed it is changing the Torah because of the actions of outsiders.
” intrinsic to proper society roles”
Given that there are only about a dozen mitzvot from the Torah for which there is a different obligation for men than for women, it is a pretty big stretch to use the Torah to justify the halachic imposition of different roles for women that arose in the non-Jewish culture around us.
Before one can adequately address this question, one has to realize what “ordination” means today: If you have yoreh yoreh semichah, you are a rabbi, whatever title you have. Contrary to what the opponents of women’s ordination claim, yoreh yoreh semichah does NOT make you qualified as a dayan, chas v’shalom! All the subjects typically included in the examinations for yoreh semichah — kashrut, Shabat and Yom Tov, taharat hamishpacha, and aveilut — are subjects for which women and men both have a chiyuv, so there is absolutely no prohibition to teach women these halachot (and probably a chiyuv on the community to teach them). All the yoreh yoreh says is that the examining rabbi (or school) deems the recipient knowledgeable in those matters, and sufficiently trustworthy to teach and answer questions in those matters. It doesn’t imply any more ???? for women than for men.
And although it has been rare in the past, we HAVE had such learned women so this is not really an innovation, just restoring something that died out probably as a response to the ways of the goyim who badly oppressed women by keeping them ignorant. In addition to Devorah and Beruriah, whom others have mentioned, the gemara in chullin reports that in talmudic times learned women would teach each other the laws of taharat hamishpacha and examine each others’s bedikah cloths. That is exactly the kind of thing that the learned women from Rav and Rabbanit Henkin’s Nishmat program do with they get certified as a yoetzet halachah.
We should be rejoicing that in our times we have such learned women in our communities!