In hindsight (I know; I know), the phenomenon described in (3) seems inevitable. If a certain title confers honor, and there isn't a central regulatory system that decides who gets that title, adoption of that title is going to spread.
The difference between the expansions to date and the one being predicted is obviousness. You can't look at a rebbi and tell whether he knows how to salt a cow. You can, however, tell that he's male (in the vast majority of cases). So, there's always plausible deniability in the heads of those who encounter him, with people assuming lechaf zechut that he has a full-fledged semicha. Calling a woman "Rabbi," though, is much more jarring.
As more people turn to their rashei yeshiva to do the yoreh-yoreh work, the role of LOR (local Orthodox rabbi) is increasingly that of chaplain.
That said, there is a historical model for this. Few graduates of Hildesheimer Seminary's were ready to be posqim. The norm was to have the rabbi around for sermonizing, counseling and lifecycle events, and hiring a Lithuanian dayan for halachic decisionmaking.
Even R' Chaim Brisker was known to refer questioners to the Brisker dayan, R' Simchah Zelig Rieger. (It would seem that Brisker lomdus made R' Chaim incapable of seeing either side as less correct.) And he defined the main role of rav as "to help the needy, protect the persecuted, defend the widows, and sustain orphans. In short, it is acts of gemilat chassadim." (Quoting his grandson, R' JB Soloveitchik, lecture to the RCA convention, June 1970; c.f. Rakeffet, "The Rav", 5.07)
I'm not sure what this shift has to do with the subject of women rabbis. I would think the issue involves communal structure more than whether "qabal es ha'emes mimi she'amru" (accept the truth from whomever says it) includes halachic advice.
Side-note: Does Ner call the ordination in MB "semichah", or do they not use that term for Rav uManhig? I'm under the impression from their bochein, R' Yosef Berger [a cousin] that he personally avoided calling Rav uManhig certification by the term semichah, as there is no conferral of halachic authority from rebbe to talmid.
-micha
(Truth in advertising: I have personal reasons to perhaps overly value the rabbi-as-maggid role.)
Micha - the point is not whether or not it's called semicha. The point is that the recipient can be called Rabbi.
>"Other Jewish movements - this is not to say that other denominations put pressure on Orthodoxy to do anything."
>>I do not understand. What other "Jewish" movements do you recognize as existing outside of Orthodoxy? You know very well what every grade school child knows: by definition "Judaism" presupposes a belief in Torah Mi'Sinai and the 13 principles of the Rambam. As you are alluding to "Conservativism" and "Reformism," please do not relate these derivative religions to Judaism. Alas, they are non-Jewish offshoots (no less than the various Christian denominations) their distorted self-identification notwithstanding. Just because these religions use the nominal "Judaism" as a suffix does not make it so.
Our "balebas" writes: the point is not whether or not it's called semicha. The point is that the recipient can be called Rabbi.
Well, there is a reason why I called it a "side-note".
I still don't know why the shift from poseiq-centric to clergy is relevent to the primary questions about woman rabbis. Is there anything a poseiq does (assuming we're not talking the teshuvah-author sort, the rare few who might be doing hora'ah) that is more problematic than any other form of religious leadership?
-micha
That's why I like Maharetzin.
I'm telling you, you need to get that title checked out by a real grammarian. I mean rabbi.
"toenet" will become subsumed under the title "lawyer". Encouraging women to become toanot IMHO bordered on onaat mamon on the part of the Rabbanim that encouraged this course of study for women. Everyone knows that a toen rabbani is limited in what s/he can do - and many issues related to divorce (especially child support) are under the SOLE jurisdiction of the civil courts, thus rendering a rabbinical court pleader ineffective in representing their client. It was a feminist agenda that pushed these women into toanot programs. Today many have them have gone on to get law degrees - as well as a more "balanced" perspective on divorce in Israel. A survey was done on some of the original toanot and found that nearly half their clients were men, not women. Today, many younger women just go straight into law school. A program like the new midrasha at shareii mishpat law school http://www.inn.co.il/News/News.a...ews.aspx/
188096 is much more effective than the toenet rabbani program.
I noticed in (3) that you left out the role of a sofer from the list of rabbinic disciplines? Was that a slight? 
IIUC, your premise in (4) is that women get paid less for the same work. I'm not sure that will play out, esprcially in view of (1).
Wow. I can't recall a post from teh adderabbi with which I disagreed so thoroughly.
1. Other jewish "movements", as you style them, are hardly an impetus for orthodoxy to do anything. In fact, the opposite is likely. The more liberal Jews adopt feminism, the less likely orthodoxy is to do the same. Orthodoxy is often reactionary, as you know, and it reacts strongest to innovations among it's own.
2. You mentioned money as an impetus, and in the previous post you mentioned parsonage. That's not a good example, because the great bulk of people taking parsonage right now are doing it illegally. There are koillel yungeleite who take parsonage, as well as school teachers. None of them are doing it legally. So, if feminist rabbis also want to take parsonage illegally, there's nothing stopping them right now.
3. You seem to forget the hard-wired instinct of men, which simply do not look up to women as leaders. I'm sure you know that as the proportion of women rabbis increased in pulpits, the attendance of men declined accordingly. And the same is true withhin those liberal Christian demoninations that ordain women, like the United Church of Christ. There is simply no male participation in the services.
4. I totally agree with your comments re the diminishing import of the title rabbi, but do not draw from there the conclusion that people will be equally comfortable calling women, "rabbis". One does not follow from the other.
5. Orthodoxy includes sefardim, Chassidim, Chassidim-inclined, yeshivish - none of which have shown the slightest inclination of concessions to feminism. These groups are the fastest growing segments of orthodoxy. Whatver tiny segment of orthodoxy is in favor of feminisim is more than cancelled out by these portions.
6. I've seen no evidence that modern orthodoxy as a whole is all that "into" women's issues. I think the older generation of baby-boomer rabbis, who are more liberal than their peers in almost everything, are still enthralled with it. But where do you see evidence that your average MO guy on the street cares about it? Israel, yes. Women's issues? Ehh.
7. The "Maharat" title is probably the silliest self-inflicted wound R. Avi Weiss could have dreamed up. The sound automatically conveys "Moreinu Hagaon Rav . . .", which makes people automatically dismiss the title even quicker.
Because it's so sensitive and touchy, I want to be clear that I mean no offense in the above post.
DF:
a sefardi rabbi on women rabbis
Steg,
And yet it's Rav Uzziel who makes the distinction between giving suggestions and pesaq. In an teshuvah from which I believe the yo'atzot derive their title, he lifts the quote from the siddur "Hashivah shofeteinu kevarishona, veyo'atzeinu kevat-chilah -- return our judges as at first, and our advisers as in the beginning" (or the Sepharadi equivalent quote). That the role of shofeit, including that of rav, was closed to women doesn't exclude them being yo'atzot.
His parallel was to Shemaya veAvtalyon who managed to be a zug, implying that at least one of them had a role in the Sanhedrin, despite being geirim. Their role, he says, was advisory. That generation the av beis din simply wasn't part of the voting quorum.
Recall that the rabbanit = serara equation is usually cited from the Rambam, not an Ashkenazi rishon. This author's notion isn't based on some distinctly Sepharadi notion of pesaq.
And even if it were, that would mean that Ashkenazim couldn't hire yoatzot anyway, since the permission would be based on an already standing Ashk - Seph machloqes.
-micha
That last line should read:
And even if it were, that would mean that Ashkenazim couldn't hire Mahara"tot anyway, since the permission would be based on an already standing Ashk - Seph machloqes.
Perhaps this is a cop-out, but it would be best just to give them another title, such as a yoetz halacha. I, like some of the other commentators would agree that its irrelevant what other movements in Judaism are doing. While I do believe women in leadership roles has its place within Jewish communities, I think changing things based on demographics is a slippery slope.
Why give in to a few loud feminists, when the results of what giving in has done in other circles is already in?
In general society - divorce rate has rocketed shy-high. Birth rate is at an all time low. Percentage of single adults is growing higher. People reporting happiness/satisfaction with their married lives is shrinking. Only the most deluded of fools will say there's no correlation to this and the rise of legal gains for feminists.
In conservative Jewish society - traditionalists left en masse with 1983 decision to ordain women. Leading to the decline of a once serious movement, with serious scholars. Now virtually indistinguishable from Reform.
Reform Jewish society - nearly more goyim than Jews. Services made up in huge percentages of women, men not interested.
This is called evidence, people. You dont have to speculate if its a good idea or not, the results are already in. The conclusion to draw is that, gee whiz, maybe society for the past 3000 years were right all along, and maybe this feminism idea of the past 50 wasnt such a hot idea after all.
micha:
i was pointing out to DF that it's not an un-sefardic idea, as was claimed.
Pat:
what does the divorce rate have to do with anything? doesn't that just mean that women (and men!) now feel free to end their unhappy marriages?
Pat,
Your "evidence" seems to be based on the popular post/cum hoc, ergo propter hoc set of fallacies. Not to say that I disagree with your conclusions, but the line between the "facts" and your attempt to explain them is fuzzy at best.
See my comments on the topic at
http://thinkingtorah.blogspot.co...men-
rabbis.html
"Only the wort ostriches still believe that women do not fill roles that are currently being filled by 'rabbis',"
Of course they fill many such roles, but not ALL the roles. That is the point: "semicha" would implicitly qualify them for all such roles.
Personally, I sort of like the system in parts of Israel where the names of women speakers are preceded by "Hageveret". When you think about it, it has the same literal meaning as "harav", and when abbreviated in writing (HGV') it even looks similar. Using this or a similar title, particularly in the US where the word has no common usage right now, would accomplish everything that "Maharat" is intended to accomplish. At the same time it would neutralize many of the objections regarding creeping egalitarianism and so on.
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