Think of smicha the same way you would think of a graduate degree from a university in a secular context. Earning an advanced degree from Harvard, Yale or Stanford is a considerably more rigorous and legitimately prestigious achievement than the same degree from Yenavelt State Online University. Likewise, for some CR readers, smicha conferred by a rosh yeshiva at BMG, Telz, MIr etc. conveys considerably greater respect and prestige for legitimate reasons, namely the rigor of the learning, the comprehensiveness of the testing and the gadlus of the rabbonim conveying the smicha as compared to a smicha from REITS or R’L from Rav Avi Weiss or JTS. There are a lot of “Rebbeles” opening their own shuls and yeshivos in recent years with smicha from rabbonim whose own provenance is questionable but yet they have the standing to produce another generation of “rebbeim”.
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