Semicha Presentation

Semicha Celebration

Question

I have studied hilchos Shabbos b’iyun for the past three years in Rabbi Travis’ kollel, and after taking a rigorous test, we are receiving semicha from a number of gedolim and making a seudah to celebrate this. I would like to know from the rov what the significance of semicha is and if this seudah is considered a seudas mitzvah.

Yehuda Korolnick

Rav Auerbach 

In the times of Chazal, semicha was extremely important, for this imbued special authority to those who received it, e.g., the power to inflict makkos, to pay a k’nas, etc.

Semicha was given to a chosen few, and even then only under very specific circumstances. Under these conditions, I believe that a semicha celebration could have the status of a seudas mitzvah.  

Today, the primary purpose of semicha is to determine if a person is fit to pasken questions in halacha, and the semicha has very little halachic significance. Although it is a great accomplishment to pass such a test, and I myself am signing on the semicha certification, in practical terms the main purpose of semicha is to ensure that a person is able to rule correctly. This being said, a seudas semicha cannot really be considered a seudas mitzvah.

I must add that some people receive semicha and then forget the material shortly afterwards. This type of semicha has little or no value. When my esteemed brother-in-law, Rav Zalman Nechemia Goldberg, would give semicha, he would tell the recipients that in order for the semicha to have continued validity, they had to review the material every month.