Semicha

:See related article about rabbis (who may or may not have formal semicha ("ordination").)

Semicha in the Mishnah and Talmud

For some time, rabbis in the era of the Mishnah (until 200 CE) and the two Talmuds continued to ordain their successors through the semicha ceremony, but eventually the rabbis began to confer the title "rabbi" without a hands-on semicha; instead they used an oral or written formula. This is sometimes known as "neo-semicha".

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In the Mishnaic era it became the law that only someone who had semicha could give religious and legal decisions (Talmud Sanhedrin 5b.)

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Before 135 CE, only Jewish sages in Palestine had semicha, and thus were called rebbi (or "rabbi"). The sages of the Babylonian Jewish community had a similar religious education, but without the semicha ceremony they were called rav. As such, these early Babylonian Jewish sages deferred to the Palestinian Jewish sages.

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The situation changed as a result of the failed revolution by Bar Kokhba in 132?135 C.E. The Romans put down the revolt, and the emperor Hadrian withdrew all support for the Sanhedrin, the supreme legislative and religious body of the Jewish people. According to the Mishna, Hadrian banned the granting of semicha; anyone who gave or accepted semicha was given the death penalty. Further, the Mishna states that if semicha is given, the very city in which the ceremony took place would be demolished (Sanhedrin 14a.)

Related Topics:
Revolution - Bar Kokhba - Hadrian - Sanhedrin

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The decline of classical semicha

According to most Jewish writers on this topic, sometime during the fourth century CE, during the time of Hillel II, the original semicha, with all the powers originally granted, ceased to exist.

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A minority of Jewish writers maintain that a form of the original semicha continued to be practiced in small numbers as late as the eleventh century CE.

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The Geonim, early medieval Jewish sages of Babylon, did not possess semicha, yet were formally known as "rabbis" and were entrusted with authority to make legal and religious decisions. Rabbinic ordination was not passed through the laying on of hands, but through a written certificate.

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Sometime after the Black death struck Europe, the Jewish community was influenced by the formal issuing of diplomas conferred by European Christian universities. In the areas today known as France and Germany, Ashkenazic Jews began using the term semicha again, this time using it to refer to a formal "diploma" conferred by a teacher on his pupil. This practice was at first frowned upon by Sephardic Jews, who viewed the practice as "presumptuous and arrogant", and an imitation of gentile customs; eventually however this practice was adopted by the Sephardic Jewish community as well.

Related Topics:
France - Germany - Ashkenazi - Sephardi - Gentile

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