Reply To: If you do not have s'micha, can you advertise yourself as "Rabbi"?

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writersoul
Participant

Ubiq: Not the same at all.

The halachic differences between men and women, for example, are laid out.

Running on the assumption that in fact modern-day semicha candidates (even if technically semicha was discontinued), as the Rema said, need to be eligible for Sanhedrin and must therefore be male (there are other reasons but that’s probably the most overarching one), the same applies here. So far so similar.

But here we’re not talking about someone who earns the title of rabbi. We’re specifically someone who did not get (the modern equivalent of) semicha. The rules are open at this point. Should any man be considered to earn this qualification? How is that right, if women can do the same things- none of which are part of the traditional way by which rabbanus is achieved- and not get the same title? When we are specifically speaking of ADDING privileges onto things which historically did not contain them, we can talk about fairness.