Yeshivat Har Etzion - Training Community Rabbis

Yeshivat Har Etzion's Semicha Program emphasizes Gemara and Halacha and trains its students for the Israeli Rabbanut Semicha exams. Semicha candidates must pass a series of six written tests on Shabbat, Marriage, Family purity and Mikvaot, Kashrut, and Aveilut. 

In Yeshivat Har Etzion, the training of Community Rabbis goes beyond the daled amot of the Beit Midrash. Community Rabbis are charged with many responsiblities in multiple fields. Rav Yosef Zvi Rimon's Merkaz Halacha works within Yeshivat Har Etzion to assist in giving Rabbi's-in-training practical halachic issues.  

Yonatan Shai Freedman is studying for Rabbanut smicha in The Yeshiva.  

Yonatan Shai Freedman with Shiur Alef talmidim in The Gush Beit Midrash

He attends Rav Rimon’s “shiur ba-kehilla,” a weekly shiur discussing community shaylahs and how to deal with them.  Kashrut Supervision is an important contribution of a Community Rabbi and Yonatan Shai  travelled with Rav Yosef Zvi Rimon to the chicken slaughterhouse in Or Yehuda.  

The rabbis saw the practical side of shechita, learned firsthand the positives and negatives of that particular slaughterhouse, and even got trained on how to check shechita knives. 

Rav Yosef Zvi Rimon with the
Community Rav of  Of Yehuda who met the group.

Yonatan Shai Freedman, "I learned that there are numerous issues at play in a slaughterhouse, and that the differences between the regular hashgachot vs. the mehadrin or badatz are vast. Am Yisrael really relies on knowledgable rabbanim and shochetim who are yarei Shamayim."

Rv Yosef Zvi Rimon fourth from right
Yonatan Shai Freedman second from right

Bein Kotlei HaYeshiva
Yeshivat Har Etzion 
Gush Etzion 
July 2014/Tamuz 5774